Mohamad Shmaysani
Between July 1942 and February 1943, a 200-day battle, the bloodiest in human history, left 1,800,000 casualties on the Russian and German sides. A total of 200,000 square kilometers were destroyed in the battle of Stalingrad, yet casualties and destruction were never the measurment unit of defeat and victory. The Germans lost the Battle and for the Russian heroism shown King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the Stalingrad citizens a jeweled sword in appreciation of the bravery that they had shown.
Between December 27, 2008 and January 17, 2009 a 22-day assault, the bloodiest in human history, left more than 1,300 civilians killed on one side; the Palestinian side. Much of a total of 365 square kilometers has been destroyed in the Israeli war on Gaza. Still, casualties and destruction is not the measurment unit of victory and defeat. The Israelis who launched a disproportionate war on Gaza have been defeated. Throughout history, a resistance force has never been required to eliminate an enemy or capture land; like in France, Lebanon and Palestine, the resistance’s job is to fight, repel and hold out. Victory is achieved when these three conditions are met.
Triumphant Gazans will not wait for a ‘king’ to award them with a jeweled sword; they’ve already earned the accolade of honor.
Although Hitler’s strategic main objective of battle of Stalingrad was the capture of the Volga River, Olmert’s objective of the war on Gaza was…nobody inside and outside Israel knows.
What they have been saying in the Jewish state after the ceasefire took effect, is that the war ‘is just another stop along a trail blazing with fire;’ a trail that formally started to ascend in 1948 and reached the pinnacle just before the end of the second millennium. However, the trail has been descending steeply since the start of this third millennium with an increasing speed and a fast growing blaze that will eventually render the whole trail to ashes.
First was the humiliating pullout of Israel from Lebanon in 2000, second was the 2006 war on Lebanon and third was the 2008 war on Gaza. In those three wars, Israel was not the entity everyone thought it was; the entity that battles Arab armies and defeats them in less than a week. 33 days in Lebanon and another 22 days in Gaza saw Israel’s defeat not by armies, but by resistance fighters and steadfast civilians.
Israel claimed it wanted to crush Hamas, then faced the bitter truth and claimed it just wanted to change the status quo in Gaza, then it got more modest and claimed it wanted to stop Palestinian rocket firing, then in a weaker tone it stated it only wants to teach Hamas a lesson and when all of the above failed, Israel said it wanted to restore its so called power of deterrence after the defeat in Lebanon in 2006; deterrence by adopting the “Dahyie Doctrine” – The Beirut Southern Suburb Doctrine that saw the destruction of Dahiye in 2006 - in military operations though which civilians and civilian infrastructure become the main targets.
The Israelis could not achieve anything from the war on Gaza. They couldn’t even engage in ‘phase three’ of the war.
Like Lebanon, Gaza has proved Israel’s military might can no longer be the primary instrument for pushing the Israeli trail in this region.
Gaza did not cure Israel of its deep Lebanon wound but only further exposed the tragic and never-ending mistakes the Jewish state has committed for over 60 years.
‘When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us,’ David Grossman’s Haaretz analysis said.
There is nothing much left in this ‘blazing trail’ to burn.
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