A classic Zionist fabrication was provided by Ruth Zakh, Israel’s deputy-ambassador to Ireland, in an Irish Times ‘Opinion’ (1 June 2011). It was headed ‘Political Stunts not the way to end Gaza Conflict’.
The new flotilla to Gaza is all about delivering provocation rather than aid, just like last year’s … In 2005, Israel implemented its ‘disengagement plan’, completely withdrawing both its military and civilian presence from the Gaza Strip. While Israel hoped disengagement would serve as a springboard for improving relations with its neighbours, the opposite occurred: Hamas … took control of Gaza and stepped up rocket attacks, firing more than 10,000 rockets and mortars at civilian targets … within Israel proper – targets that have included kindergartens, school buses and marketplaces. The heavy armament used in these attacks is smuggled into Gaza via land and sea.
From this we gather that Gazan weapons inflict widespread damage on Israel’s population, a message regularly reinforced by the international media. What percentage of the general public is aware that in ten years (2001–2011) Gazan rockets and mortars killed 23 people (22 Israelis and one Thai farm labourer)? Admittedly, 23 too many. But in 22 days Cast Lead killed more than 1,400 Gazans and since the end of that operation the IDF have killed another 200 plus – despite Ruth Zakh’s misleading statement about Israel having ‘withdrawn both its military and civilian presence from the Gaza Strip’.
The Gazans respect for John Ging led many to expect more support from the Irish government. Uthman asked me, ‘Why does your country not talk strong for us? Your Foreign Minister came visiting for a few hours but afterwards said nothing strong. Did you burn too many Jews?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘we didn’t burn any Jews but for economic and sentimental reasons Ireland has always been subservient to the US.’ Then I confessed that Shannon airport is permanently at the disposal of the US armed forces, however illegal their missions, and of the CIA as it flies its captives in unmarked planes to unnamed countries for courses of ‘enhanced interrogation’.
It took time to explain all this in simple English. Five of us were sitting in the shade of a half-collapsed wall, looking across this club’s pitch – a cleared bomb site, strewn with fragments of metal and splinters of glass. Soon it would be lost to the club; new shacks were planned.
On the far side rose a towering monument to Cast Lead’s savagery, the bisected remains of a ten-storey, Oslo-era block, designed to US corporate specifications and constructed of reinforced concrete. Its ground floor had been let to many stores, a car showroom, bakers, barbers, a restaurant, a few cafés, a dentist’s clinic, a gas cylinder store. On the next two floors were offices, above them, flats. Scores of women and children were among the 210 killed here, Uthman told me. Then immediately after the ceasefire many others died while trying to salvage something from within the unstable ruin. The bomb had left one half upright, in an extremely perilous condition. Tons of jagged slabs still hung by lengths of steel 100 feet or more above four children whose donkey-cart was being loaded with scraps of unidentifiable substances – for use in Gaza’s ‘building trade’, where a wealth of ingenuity makes up for a dearth of materials.
We crossed the ‘football field’ and within this macabre edifice Uthman insisted on leading me by the hand across a narrow causeway of rubble – shifting beneath the feet – to a point from where I cold look far down into the depths of the basement. There lay the bomb’s massive case, by far the biggest of the many ‘souvenirs’ displayed to me on the Strip. Two visiting ISMs had longed to auction it on eBay, to raise money for its maimed victims. A kind impulse, but no one could think how to haul it up – and anyway, unless the top bidder lived in Gaza, there would be an insoluble transport problem. One wonders, why the Goldstone Enquiry? To drop such a bomb on a shopping centre-cum-residential block is in itself a war crime for which there could be no possible excuse or explanation.
* * *
On a very windy morning I walked the length of Gaza Port’s breakwater with Fahd and Yaser, two of Anwar’s bilingual grandnephews. They were first cousins, jobless graduates of Gaza’s al-Azhar University, politically on the same wavelength but in appearance almost comically dissimilar. Tubby Fahd took after his great-uncle, Yaser was unusually tall for a Palestinian with conspicuously long features: long nose, long chin, even long ear lobes. They felt none of Anwar’s reservations about BDS and worked hard on their computers as organisers for its National Committee. It cheered them that Dexia, a persistently targeted French-Belgian bank, was about to sell its Israeli subsidiary. And two French companies, Alstom and Derail Veolia, were loosening their ties with Israeli partners while numerous other companies had begun to register the effects of negative publicity. The University of Johannesburg was boycotting Ben-Gurion University. In Britain the University and College Union (the UK’s largest academic labour union) and the University of London Union (Europe’s largest student union) had voted to cut all links with Israeli institutions. Also, David Cameron had resigned, with minimum publicity, from his position as Honorary Chairman of the Jewish National Fund, a powerful Zionist agency. And Marc Almond and Andy McKee had cancelled visits to Israel. When I asked ‘Who are they?’ my companions looked worried and sympathetic; no doubt to them this lacuna suggested the onset of Alzheimer’s.
At the end of the long breakwater we perched on smooth boulders, the Mediterranean being boisterous on three sides, cooling us with showers of spray. The only people visible were a few fishermen in the far distance, repairing their boats’ bullet holes, and Fahd noted that here we were beyond range of eavesdroppers – unless Israel’s latest pride and joy, a mini-drone known as ‘the Ghost’, incorporates some lip-reading device.
It heartened these keen campaigners to know that Israel was about to legislate against BDS, thus proving its effectiveness and gaining it much valuable global attention. The Law for Prevention of Damage to the State of Israel was passed a few weeks later, on 10 July (by 47 votes to 38), and a government spokesperson described BDS as ‘an existential threat’. Already this legislation had ignited controversy; thirty-six distinguished law professors considered it unconstitutional and leading civil rights groups were preparing to challenge it in the courts. On the West Bank, settler businessmen were also preparing lawsuits – against BDS organisations and individuals, who would be compelled to pay reparations at a fixed rate (30,000 shekels: US$8,700) without the injured party having to provide any evidence of actual injury. Companies complying with boycotts will be barred forever from doing business with any government office or agency.
Said Fahd, ‘All this helps towards what Zionists most dread – the delegitimising of Israel! Which prepares the way for binationalism …’
Yaser added, ‘The joke is, people backing the law say it’s to block delegitimisation efforts! On Facebook I saw “Peace Now!” car stickers saying “Sue me, I’m boycotting settlement products”. But only brave people will use those.’
‘Another new law bans Nakba Day,’ said Fahd. ‘Schools and institutions commemorating it will lose all funding – it denies the Jewish and democratic character of the State! An amendment to the Penalty Code protects that character – people denying its existence can be jailed. Even though with a normal IQ you can see it’s not possible to be Jewish and democratic with one-fifth Muslim citizens. Tied in are the “acceptance committees” – naked apartheid! Every village and community built on public land can have a committee to reject Muslim newcomers. The bill calls them “candidates who fail to meet the fundamental views of the community”. So how can they get mad when we publicise their apartheid system?’
‘The positive bit,’ said Yaser, ‘is how all this unites some of us, Israelis and Palestinians protesting together. Next month Jerusalem will see a big joint demo. It’s being organised by Daniel Argo from the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity group and Murad Shafea from Silwan. We’ve had a video conference with them. Dan says we must have a unified state called Israeli-Palestine and all of us as equal citizens. He’s brav
e!’
Fahd was suddenly looking gloomy. ‘This government plans about twenty new laws, all meant to criminalise new ways of thinking, like binationalism. They feel they’re being pushed to the exit. When I first heard them saying BDS is an existentialist threat, I cheered. Now I’ve nightmares about another Cast Lead because they feel pushed. Or an all-out attack on Iran instead of just assassinating nuclear scientists. I wish they could see Israeli-Palestine as a model for the whole region – we’re demanding rights people don’t have in most Arab states. They could get a lot of respect if they shared with us what your friend Mazin calls the Land of Canaan.’
I asked, ‘At present, how do you see one-state support on both sides?’
Fahd shrugged. ‘What would you expect? Very little on the other side until BDS bites harder – far harder! But Desmond Tutu says for us it’s picking up speed faster than it did for the ANC – in reaction to Cast Lead.’
‘Among us,’ said Yaser, ‘attitudes changed, specially in our age-group, when al-Jazeera published the Palestine Papers. Then we saw the dung-heap in the PA’s backyard. And we realised honest people were trying to persuade them to go one-state as a credible alternative. Hearing Erekat boasting about PA forces killing “terrorists” to “help” Israel – that was shock-therapy! We knew it went on, but boasting about it is different …’
Fahd was emphatic. ‘For certain we’d accept if Israel made the offer. If you asked people now most might say “No!” because they can’t imagine such a thing. That’s why it needs to be talked about loudly, in public. If the offer was genuine we’d say “Yes!” We’re tired – very tired – of conflict. We want justice before peace but we do want peace – badly.’
Yaser lit his last cigarette and tossed the empty package into the sea. I said nothing with difficulty. He made an obvious point too often overlooked. ‘While outsiders go on and on about two states we know we can’t have an independent Palestine. We live here, with the reality. The Zionists have won, they’ve taken so much land there’s not enough left to fight over, even if we could fight.’
‘Which we can’t,’ said Fahd. ‘No one gives us F-16s, helicopter gunships, Merkavas, gunboats and drones.’
Strolling back to the beach, our thoughts turned to Freedom Flotilla II. We had heard news that morning; the Irish MV Saoirse (of which I am the proud part-owner to the extent of perhaps half an ounce) was in dry dock in Turkey having its propeller mended after sabotage by Israeli frogmen (or their proxies). The US ship – Audacity of Hope, ironically named after President Obama’s second book – was languishing in a military marina near Athens while her skipper, John Klusmire, languished in Greek police custody. He was soon to appear in court, charged with ignoring an order to remain in port and with risking the lives of passengers who could be harmed by the IDF en route to Gaza. The obedient Greek government had confined the other eight boats to various ports – an illegal move, according to Nikos Chountis, a Greek Flotilla activist. The Free Gaza movement, organiser of these international flotillas, had been told of a compromise Greek–Israeli deal favoured by the ever-compliant Mahmoud Abbas and that celebrated US stooge (aka the UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon. The Greeks had offered to transport to Israel, for delivery to Gaza, the boats’ cargoes (goods and mail). Rejecting this offer, a Flotilla spokesperson reminded everyone that in 2009 and 2010 the cargoes of captured boats were allowed to spoil in Ashdod warehouses; humidity destroyed cement, heat destroyed medications. And the delivery of some 3,000 private letters, many containing cash gifts, had overtaxed the Strip’s UN agencies.
My companions had reservations about the Flotilla project. Both appreciated the hard work and courage of the participants – especially such dogged activists as the eighty-seven-year-old Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein. But they felt it would be wise to abandon the pretence that badly needed humanitarian aid was being shipped to Gaza. Those few ships could carry only token amounts. The Israelis can prove their cargoes are unimportant and accuse the organisers of staging political stunts.
‘Better to focus on freedom,’ said Fahd. ‘The freedom to arrive and depart, keeping all attention on that central problem, our imprisonment.’
Yaser agreed. ‘We’re not starving Africans dying in a drought-stricken desert. Our tragedy is not a food shortage but a freedom shortage.’
‘D’you remember ’08?’ Fahd asked. ‘The Israelis allowed several boats through the blockade. Later they sailed away with passengers who urgently needed out but couldn’t get permits. All publicity should concentrate on that lack of freedom to lead normal lives – as students, businessmen, builders, musicians, friends, patients, pilgrims, holiday-makers.’
Yaser nodded. ‘The next Flotilla should say it doesn’t want to take anything in, only take people out! Patients to get to specialist hospital units, students to get to foreign universities while scholarships are valid, relatives and friends to visit bereaved people. The Israelis couldn’t sneer then about political stunts.’
‘But they’d go on about the Victoria,’ said Fahd. For my benefit he explained, ‘The Israelis captured this commercial ship a few months ago, carrying fifty tons of weapons from Iran for Gaza – the IDF said.’
Yaser laughed. ‘Iran’s too smart to try getting past the blockade! Those weapons were for someone else – maybe Assad, via the Lebanon. Iranians love him and he’s in big trouble. But the story made good propaganda. Media people repeat what the IDF tells them – “See the danger! We must keep Gaza cut off from all these heavy armaments!” Like there were no tunnels! The Flotilla should get friends of Zionism to check cargoes on the way – then what could Israel say? What excuse for stopping Gazans going to hospital or college or visiting relatives? The Flotilla is there to help them, they’re not asking to go through Israel where they might stop off to blow someone up. Why won’t Israel let them out of prison? It could be a dual-purpose campaign, “Free Gaza!” and big publicity for BDS!’
Already there is a strong link between BDS and the Flotilla. Zionism and its faithful followers may ridicule the latter as an alliance of archaic Lefties, shrill eccentrics, thwarted minor politicians, faded Flower People, professional publicity-seekers, covert Communists, and cheerleaders for terrorism. In fact, as Mark LeVine, history professor at the University of California, often points out, ‘The political and strategic implications of the Flotilla are quite real. It symbolises that the Palestinians and their international supporters are refusing to play by Israel’s rules …’ BDS also carries this message.
Back at Anwar’s house, we heard that a Scandinavian boat had also been sabotaged. And that a US State Department spokesperson had praised the ‘established and efficient’ methods of supplying Gaza’s needs through Israel.
* * *
A few days later I had a different sort of conversation in a dismal café, reeking of over-used cooking oil, near al-Azhar University. Jamal and Salim were English Language and sociology students (the language barrier limited my range of student acquaintances) from Jabalya camp. Unlike Anwar’s atypical grand-nephews, with their sights fixed on binationalism and BDS, these young men – both close to graduation – seemed confused and on edge.
The recent ‘Unity Agreement’ between Fatah, Hamas and a few minor splinter groups and individuals bothered them. Salim thought it a bad omen that the signing took place in Cairo’s Mukhabarat, the Egyptian government’s intelligence headquarters of ill repute, where so many Palestinians have been tortured on Zionism’s behalf. He couldn’t believe in that ‘unity’; past experiences made it seem chimerical; he imagined betrayal of the overall Palestinian cause being plotted behind its façade. Jamal condemned Hamas for compromising their principles, going after the mess of pottage that would reward their working within the PA structure – in other words, collaborating with Israel.
Salim said, ‘Hamas leaders are getting afraid, losing support. After the war [Operation Cast Lead] they got very popular again. Now with no jobs and always people being killed – women and childre
n – most see these rulers can’t help us. Even worse, while they keep power, Israel won’t let others help us, all must suffer because they won’t let go. I’d like a real Unity Agreement, leaders united, power-sharing, like in Northern Ireland. But that’s not what got signed in Cairo. Hamas have no unity inside themselves, must talk two ways at once. Last year, to make calm their own mad dogs, Haniyeh said Fatah “wages war against Islam”. But he has waged war on Islamic Jihad.’
Salim was referring to August 2009 when Islamic Jihad raged against Hamas’ participation in ‘secular’ elections and attacked Qassam units – the first armed opposition to the ruling party since 2007. Not many Gazans objected when an unspecified number of captured jihadists were promptly shot in defiance of every international law and convention. Your average Palestinian is sensibly afraid of Salafist-types who seek to please Allah by slaughtering all brands of infidels and throwing acid in the faces of ‘naked’ (i.e., bare-headed) women.
A Month by the Sea Page 16