July 25, 2006
The Bush administration, Congress and the press repeatedly
echo the Israeli government’s position that the current warfare between
Israel versus Palestinians and Lebanese is a consequence of the
"kidnapping" of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit by Hamas-led militants on
June 25, 2006 and the "abduction" of two more Israeli soldiers by
Hizbollah on July 12, 2006. Yet every hostile action in this part of the
Middle East is seen by someone as a response to a prior action by the
other side. The only logical starting point for objectively examining the
sequence of causes and effects is to begin with a watershed event that was
clearly independent of any preceding military or political provocation. In
2006 that event was the Palestinian elections of January 25.
A careful examination of the sequence of events reveals
that every significant military action by a Palestinian or Lebanese
militia was clearly in response to desperate conditions imposed on
Palestinians by Israel. While one may not condone many of these actions
because they result in the loss of life, they must be understood in the
context of the entire crisis in this part of the Middle East and the
living conditions of Palestinians, many of whom have been exiled from
their ancestral homes since the UN partition of Palestine in 1948.
Chronology of crisis
The following chronology of major events was compiled from
Associated Press, The New York Times, Financial Times,
The Observer and other established news agencies.
January 20, 2005: Facing mounting criticism of his
conduct of the war in Iraq and "the war on terror", President George W.
Bush at his second inaugural address tries to give a positive face to his
administration by adding "promotion of democracy" as the new cornerstone
of US foreign policy. He says, "So it is the policy of the United States
to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in
every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our
world." An outcome of this policy was the encouragement given to Hamas to
participate in future Palestinian elections.
Mid-January 2006: Public opinion polls in Palestine
continue to suggest that Fatah will win the most seats in the elections
for the Palestinian parliament. The polls indicate that Hamas could win
more than one-third of the seats.
January 25, 2006: Israel seals off Gaza by closing the
Erez border crossing into Gaza in anticipation of security concerns
leading up to Palestinian elections. Karni crossing was closed on January
15, 2006 and three other commercial crossings have been opened only
intermittently. The impoverished Gaza Strip is critically dependent on
imports of food, fuel, medicines and other essential commodities brought
in through Israeli-controlled border crossings. Gaza residents were
equally dependent on the border crossings to get to their jobs in Israel
before that avenue of employment was cut off by Israeli authorities.
(The entire Gaza Strip is surrounded by concrete walls and
high fencing. Israel controls all access into and out of Gaza, including
the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Palestinian access to the sea
is strictly controlled by the Israeli navy. Palestinian air traffic is
banned.)
Palestinians go to the polls to elect a new parliament –
the Palestinian Legislative Council.
January 26: The preliminary election results are
announced. Hamas wins 76 of the 132 seats, an absolute majority. Fatah
wins only 43. International observers declare the elections to be free and
fair. The later final tally will be 74 seats for Hamas.
February 12: The Heritage Foundation, a conservative
think tank in Washington, DC, says that democracy should no longer be an
immediate goal of US foreign policy. Other think tanks, such as the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, follow suit later in the month
by attacking the administration’s commitment to promoting elections.
February 13: Israeli officials and western diplomats
reveal that Israel and the United States are discussing ways to
destabilise the newly-elected Palestinian government. The intention is to
starve the Palestinian Authority (PA) of money and international
connections until President Mahmoud Abbas is compelled to call a new
election.
February 18: The new Palestinian parliament is sworn
in by President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. With many Palestinian
legislators in Gaza banned by Israel from travelling to the West Bank,
they have to settle for participating via a video link.
February 19: Israel cuts off approximately $50 million
in monthly customs and tax revenues that it collects for the Palestinian
Authority. The money is essential to pay the salaries of 160,000
Palestinian government employees, including 58,000 police and security
personnel.
The US government backs Israel by announcing that it too
is likely to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority until the new Hamas
government recognises Israel and disarms its commandos.
March 5: Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is sworn in as
prime minister to head the next government. Branding it a "terrorist
authority", both the US and Israeli governments refuse to constructively
engage a new Palestinian government jointly led by a Fatah president and a
Hamas-led cabinet.
March 10: US officials pressure independent "moderate"
politicians not to serve in a Hamas-led government. The Bush
administration’s strategy is to force Hamas to govern alone, hoping to
isolate it politically when its government eventually fails under the
cut-off of tax revenues and western aid.
March 14: When British prison monitors were suddenly
ordered to leave their posts supervising six high profile Palestinian
detainees in Jericho, Israel besieged the prison compound with tanks,
taking the six detainees into their custody. One of those seized was Ahmed
Saadat of the secular left wing Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), who had won a seat in the Palestinian election in
January. It is widely believed that the sudden withdrawal of the British
prison monitors was calculated to give Israeli forces a pretext to seize
the detainees by force from PA custody. The coordinated British and
Israeli actions sparked widespread outrage throughout Palestine.
March 19: Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh proposes a
24-member cabinet made of Hamas members, Fatah members and independents
having been deterred from joining by US pressure.
With the nearly 1.4 million Gaza residents facing severe
shortages of bread, milk and other essential commodities, Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators reach a tentative agreement to open one border
crossing into Gaza near kibbutz Kerem Shalom to allow humanitarian aid to
enter the densely populated Palestinian enclave from Egypt.
April 7: The US and EU formally cut off all direct aid
to the Hamas-led government, demanding that Hamas recognise Israel, honour
previous PA agreements and disarm its commandos. They say that they will
redirect some aid to humanitarian projects that bypass the PA. The US
decision affects $411 million previously earmarked for the PA to maintain
services in the impoverished Palestinian territories and about $100
million to be redirected to food and medicines delivered through
international agencies.
May 7: The PA defaults on two months of salary
payments for its 160,000 government employees.
As the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank
continues to deteriorate, the US and EU search for ways to resume
international aid while bypassing Hamas. They consider channelling aid
through the office of President Mahmoud Abbas in cooperation with the
World Bank, IMF and the United Nations.
May 18: Starved of income, facing daily food shortages
and virtually imprisoned within the boundaries of Gaza, residents are
becoming desperate for a resolution of the impasse. Amid rising unrest,
competing Hamas and Fatah forces attempt to assert their presences by
parading around with arms. In the following weeks, Hamas and Fatah
militias engage in intermittent shootouts, some bloody.
May 29: Israeli ground troops enter Gaza for the first
time since withdrawing eight months ago. They kill four Palestinians,
including a policeman.
June 5: President Mahmoud Abbas announces a referendum
scheduled for July 26 on a plan that would implicitly recognise Israel.
Hamas opposes the referendum.
June 7: After negotiations between Hamas and Fatah
aimed at halting weeks of bloody infighting, the Hamas-led government
agrees to withdraw controversial private militias from public spaces in
Gaza.
June 8: A midnight Israeli missile attack in southern
Gaza kills four Palestinian members of the Popular Resistance Committees,
including Jamal Abu Samhadana who had recently been appointed inspector
general in the interior ministry. Israel has blamed Samhadana for
attacking a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza in 2003 although his group has
denied involvement.
June 9: In response to Israeli missile attacks,
Palestinian militants fire small crude Qassam rockets into Israel towards
Ashkelon but no Israelis are hurt.
Israeli artillery shelling, ostensibly aimed at Qassam
rocket launch sites, kills seven civilians on a northern Gaza beach,
including a Palestinian family having a picnic with their three small
children. Israel claims it was an accident. Other Israeli rocket attacks
kill another nine Palestinians and injure at least 30 in Gaza.
In response, the Hamas government vows to end its official
16-month ceasefire with Israel.
June 10: Hamas forces fire at least 15 Qassam rockets
from Gaza into Israel.
June 11: An Israeli air strike kills two Hamas
commandos in Gaza. Palestinians respond with more Qassam rockets.
June 12: Palestinian security forces loyal to
President Mahmoud Abbas open fire with small arms on the Parliament
building and cabinet offices in Ramallah before setting the buildings on
fire. The action is in retaliation to an attack by Hamas commandos in
Gaza.
June 14: Angry Palestinian government employees, who
have not been paid for months, storm their Parliament in Ramallah,
demanding back pay.
A bit of temporary relief comes when the Palestinian
foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar, returns to Gaza carrying $20 million in
cash euros after a trip seeking emergency funds from foreign governments.
Fatah and Hamas reach an agreement to integrate a
3,000-man militia formed by the Hamas-controlled interior ministry into
the Fatah-dominated national police.
June 15: Palestinians fire Qassam rockets into the
Israeli town of Sderot.
Hamas announces its willingness to reinstate the 16-month
ceasefire if Israel will stop all attacks on Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel refuses, demanding that the Palestinian rocket attacks stop first.
June 21: At least a dozen more Palestinian civilians
are killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza over an eight-day period.
June 25: Palestinian commandos kill two Israeli
soldiers and capture Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit after tunnelling 300
yards into Israel from Gaza. Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and
the Army of Islam participate in the raid south of kibbutz Kerem Shalom,
just north of the Egyptian border.
Shalit is the first Israeli soldier captured by
Palestinians since 1994. Hamas government spokesman, Ghazi Hamad publicly
urges the captors to "protect his life and treat him well".
Israel closes all border crossings into Gaza. Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert holds the PA fully responsible.
June 26: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warns of military
action.
Palestinian captors demand that Israel release all 95
Palestinian women and 313 youths under age 18 held in Israeli prisons in
exchange for the release of Corporal Shalit. A total of over 9,500
Palestinians (excluding those who are Israeli citizens) are known to be
held in Israeli prisons.
June 27: Fatah and Hamas are compelled into unity in
the face of looming full-scale war. They adopt a common political platform
that includes an implicit recognition of the state of Israel by Hamas. The
so-called Prisoners Document calls for the creation of a Palestinian state
within pre-1967 borders, alongside Israel, and asserts the right of
Palestinian refugees to return to lands within Israel proper.
Israeli troops and armour move in force into southern
Gaza.
June 28: The Popular Resistance Committees kill one
Israeli settler near Ramallah.
June 29: Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers roll
into northern Gaza. Israeli aircraft bomb three bridges at Deir al-Balah
and the former settlement of Netzarim. They also destroy Gaza’s sole power
station that supplies half of Gaza’s electricity. Israel begins shelling
Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in Gaza. Israeli missiles target the Islamic
University in Gaza city.
Israel arrests deputy prime minister, Nasser Shaer,
one-third of the Palestinian cabinet, including labour minister, Mohammed
Barghouti, and finance minister, Omar Abdel Razak, and 20 Palestinian
legislators in Ramallah, Jenin, East Jerusalem and other parts of the West
Bank. President Mahmoud Abbas appeals to the United Nations for help in
obtaining their release. In all, 87 Palestinians are detained in the West
Bank.
PA government leaders join in the demand that Israel
release all women and children prisoners in exchange for Corporal Shalit.
Israeli justice minister, Haim Ramon suggests that the
Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, exiled in Syria, is a target for
assassination. Other Israeli officials suggest that Prime Minister Ismail
Haniyeh could also be seized in Gaza, or even assassinated, if Corporal
Shalit is not returned.
June 30: Israeli warplanes strike the Palestinian
interior ministry building, setting it on fire. Meanwhile, Israeli
aircraft and artillery continue to shower southern Gaza.
July 2: Under mounting pressure from UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and international aid agencies concerned
about the looming humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israel temporarily
opened the border crossings at Karni and Kerem Shalom to allow trucks
carrying food, fuel and medical supplies to enter Gaza after being sealed
for a week.
July 3: After Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he
intended to make the lives of Gaza residents ever more miserable until
Corporal Shalit is returned, Israeli forces intensified their attacks on
Gaza. Israeli aircraft bomb Gaza city, hitting the local Fatah party
office and the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
July 6: With Israel escalating its rocket attacks and
advancing into densely populated areas of Gaza, 16 Palestinians are
killed. One Israeli soldier also dies.
July 7: The European Union, issuing its strongest
criticism yet, states: "The EU condemns the loss of lives caused by
disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defence Forces and the
humanitarian crisis it has aggravated."
Facing mounting international criticism for its invasion
of Gaza, Israeli public security minister, Avi Dichter indicates for the
first time that Israel might be willing to free Palestinian prisoners in
exchange for the release of Corporal Shalit.
July 8: Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh calls for a
ceasefire to halt the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Israel rejects the
Palestinian offer, demanding that Palestinians first return the captured
Israeli soldier and halt rocket attacks into southern Israel.
July 9: The Palestinian death toll due to Israel’s
Gaza offensive surpasses 50.
July 12: Responding to the mounting carnage in Gaza
and the Israeli seizure of much of the Palestinian government leadership,
the Lebanese Hizbollah militia engages in border skirmishes with Israeli
troops. In the ensuing battle, Hizbollah forces kill three Israeli
soldiers and capture two. With Israeli forces in hot pursuit into Lebanon,
another five Israeli soldiers die. Hizbollah casualties were not
immediately announced.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responds by saying, "Lebanon is
responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions."
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora calls for an urgent
meeting of the UN Security Council, appealing for help in preventing the
impending Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
July 13: Israel responds with military assaults from
the air, land and sea into southern Lebanon. Its combat operations in
southern Lebanon are the first since withdrawing in 2000. Israel launches
aerial bombardment of Beirut International Airport, the surrounding
southern suburbs where Hizbollah operates and the main highway connecting
Beirut with Damascus.
Residents of Beirut stream out of the city desperately
seeking refuge in the mountains or towards Syria. With the Israeli naval
blockade and the country’s only international airport inoperable, nearly
all normal means out of the country are blocked.
Hizbollah fires scores of Katyusha rockets into Israel,
most falling around the beach town of Nahariya. A single larger missile
hits Haifa, some 20 miles south of the Lebanese border, much farther than
any previous Hizbollah rocket attacks. Hizbollah rockets also strike Raifa.
President George W. Bush unconditionally defends the
Israeli bombing of Lebanon and goes on to assert that Syria be "held to
account" for fostering "terrorism". He refuses to join international calls
for a prompt ceasefire. Meanwhile, at the UN Security Council, the United
States casts the sole vote (veto) against a resolution that would have
demanded that Israel halt its military offensive in Gaza.
July 14: Israel continues pounding southern Lebanon,
southern Beirut and sets fuel tanks ablaze at the Beirut International
Airport.
Hizbollah launches a missile attack on an Israeli warship
off the coast of Beirut, killing four sailors.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by
Lebanon convenes to discuss the possibility of a UN-mandated comprehensive
ceasefire and lifting of the Israeli air and sea blockades on Lebanon. US
ambassador John Bolton stands alone in refusing to even urge restraint
from Israel and instead blames Syria and Iran for the current crisis. In
the shadow of yesterday’s US veto, the session ends without taking any
action.
July 15: Israel bombs bridges and roads across
Lebanon, dividing the country and stranding civilians desperately fleeing
its attacks.
July 16: Fighting continues to escalate over the
weekend. Israel strikes throughout Lebanon, including Sour, Nabatiyeh,
Baalbek and as far north as the port city of Tripoli, killing scores of
civilians. Seven Canadians are killed in an Israeli air strike on the
Lebanese border town of Aitaroun. In southern Beirut, Israel introduces
for the first time the use of US-made GBU-28 guided bunker buster bombs in
an attempt to destroy Hizbollah underground bunkers within the city.
Several 12 to 15-storey buildings completely collapse into mountains of
rubble (eerily reminiscent of Ground Zero after September 11). Large areas
of the city are levelled. South of Beirut, Israeli forces bomb the Jieh
power plant. The cumulative death toll in Lebanon reaches 160,
overwhelmingly civilian, since the fighting began four days ago.
A Hizbollah rocket attack in Haifa kills eight people.
Others hit Tiberias, Nazareth, Afula, Givat Ela and the Shebaa Farms
settlement in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The cumulative death
toll in Israel reaches 24, 12 civilian and 12 military.
Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz signals an escalation
in military strategy from trying to secure the release of two Israeli
soldiers captured by Hizbollah to the aim of permanently removing
Hizbollah from southern Lebanon – essentially the area south of the Litani
river.
Media commentary widely adopts the notion that Israel is
exacting "collective punishment" on Lebanese and Palestinian residents, in
effect holding them responsible for the respective actions of Hizbollah
and Hamas. The Israeli calculation appears to be that collective
punishment through widespread bombing and destruction will intimidate
public opinion into opposing Hizbollah and Hamas.
July 17: Israeli aircraft bomb the Palestinian foreign
ministry offices in Gaza. Sustained Israeli bombardments continue in
Lebanon.
July 20: US marines begin evacuating American citizens
via amphibious landing craft from a beach north of Beirut before ferrying
them to Cyprus.
Diplomatic efforts accelerate to deploy a UN or NATO
peacekeeping force to introduce a buffer between the Israeli and Hizbollah
forces along the Israel-Lebanon border.
July 22: An advanced force of 2,000 Israeli troops
with tanks and armoured bulldozers move across the Lebanese border under
the cover of a fierce barrage of air strikes. This is in anticipation of a
massive ground offensive to sweep Hizbollah forces out of the area south
of the Litani river.
July 24: Fierce bombardments by both sides continue
throughout the week but there is always an immense military asymmetry
between Israel and Hizbollah. The official cumulative death tolls reach
380 in Lebanon, over 100 in Palestine, versus 37 in Israel. The World
Health Organisation estimates that up to 600,000 people have been
displaced by Israeli bombing in Lebanon.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins a trip to
the Middle East but without any specific proposals for a ceasefire or
diffusing the crisis. Her main preoccupation appears to be limited to
finding a way to curb Hizbollah and putting the Lebanese government in
control of the area south of the Litani river.
Ten observations
Several significant points emerge from the unfolding
events in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.
First, the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit on
June 25 was not an unprovoked aggression. It was immediately preceded by a
series of Israeli shellings, rocket attacks and commando raids on Gaza
that killed over three dozen people, mostly civilians. Even the earlier
Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel beginning on June 9 were in
response to a series of Israeli assaults on the Palestinian Authority in
particular and Palestinian sovereignty in general.
Second, the capture of two Israeli soldiers by
Hizbollah on July 12 was in support of Palestinians trapped and under
almost continuous siege in Gaza. It was also a reaction to the virtual
dismemberment of the Palestinian government through Israel’s widespread
arrests of its elected political leaders. No people would be able to
tolerate such a physical assault on their democratic political
institutions and society.
Third, all meaningful proposals for ceasefires came
from the Palestinian side and the Lebanese government. All Palestinian and
Lebanese ceasefire proposals were summarily rejected by the Israeli
government, which placed decidedly asymmetric conditions on the acceptance
of any ceasefire.
Fourth, both in Gaza and in Lebanon, Israeli attacks
deliberately targeted essential infrastructure – roads, bridges, airports,
seaports and power stations. These targets have little military
significance to militias like those of Hamas and Hizbollah. Yet they are
crucial for the civilian population, for the movement of food and
medicines and for escape routes. The systematic destruction of Lebanon’s
transport infrastructure had no more immediate effect than to deny all
Lebanese citizens and foreigners routes of escape from the heavy Israeli
bombardments.
Fifth, both in Gaza and in Lebanon, Israel’s
deliberate policy was to exact collective punishment on all residents in
the hopes of putting pressure on the militias from within. The plan is
more likely to have the opposite effect of galvanising a broad range of
popular support behind the militias in much the same way that the Israeli
assault on the Palestinian government and Gaza brought Hamas and Fatah
much closer together.
Sixth, the US government’s unconditional support for
Israel and unwavering rejection of ceasefire proposals does not even
pretend to advocate a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The US
government’s prior role as peacemaker, however partial, in the Camp David
Accords in 1978 and the Oslo Accords in 1993, has apparently been
abandoned. This extreme position will only further galvanise Arab and
Muslim public opinion against the US government and exacerbate declining
US credibility in the region.
Seventh, the cut-off of Palestinian tax revenues by
Israel and the severance of direct aid by the US and European Union in
response to the lawful installation of a democratically elected government
in Palestine belie the US and Israeli commitment to democracy. They also
reflect an utter disregard for the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian
people who had already been cut off from their jobs and only means of
livelihood in Israel since the beginning of the second Palestinian
Intifada in 2000. The potential collapse of the Palestinian Authority
would bring complete anarchy to an already chaotic situation and unleash
heretofore unseen forces from inside the Palestinian resistance.
Eighth, the iron-handed control that Israel continues
to exercise over the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza
belies the political and economic reality of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza
in September 2005. Ten months after that withdrawal, Gaza residents are as
much at the mercy of Israeli restrictions as ever. Even the movement of
people and goods between Gaza and Egypt, which share a common land border,
remains under strict Israeli military control.
Ninth, Israel’s repeated suggestions that it might
assassinate Palestinian leaders, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh,
demonstrate complete disregard for the rule of law and Palestinian
national sovereignty. Its arbitrary arrests of Palestinian cabinet
ministers and legislators prove that it may act with impunity against any
duly elected Palestinian government not to its liking.
Tenth, the slanted language of war belies the
objectivity of US policy as well as the impartiality of news coverage.
Israeli soldiers are "kidnapped" or "abducted" but Palestinian leaders are
"arrested" or "apprehended". Palestinian militants are "terrorists" but
the massive Israeli air strike that left a vast gaping Ground Zero-like
hole in the midst of high-rise residential buildings in southern Beirut is
"Israel’s right to defend itself".