What would history look like if it were written in the style of the Israeli ‘Protective Edge’ operation in Gaza, asks URI AVNERY
WINSTON CHURCHILL was a scoundrel. For five years he kept the population of London under the unceasing fire of the German Luftwaffe.
He used the inhabitants of London as a human shield in his crazy war. While the civilian population was exposed to the bombs and rockets without the protection of an “iron dome,” he was hiding in his bunker under 10 Downing Street.
He exploited all the inhabitants of London as hostages. When the German leaders made a generous peace proposal, he rejected it for crazy ideological reasons. Thus he condemned his people to unimaginable suffering.
From time to time he emerged from his underground hideout to have his picture taken in front of the ruins and then he returned to the safety of his rat hole. But to the people of London he said: “Future generations will say that this was your finest hour!”
The Luftwaffe had no alternative but to go on bombing the city. Its commanders announced that they were hitting only military targets, such as the homes of British soldiers, where military consultations were taking place.
The Luftwaffe called on the inhabitants of London to leave the city and many children were indeed evacuated. But most Londoners heeded the call of Churchill to remain, thus condemning themselves to the fate of “collateral damage.”
The hopes of the German high command that the destruction of their homes and the killing of their families would induce the people of London to rise up and kick out Churchill and his warmongering gang came to naught.
The primitive Londoners, whose hatred of the Germans overcame their logic, perversely followed the coward Churchill’s instructions. Their admiration for him grew from day to day and by the end of the war he had become almost a god.
Four years later the wheel had turned. The British and US air forces bombed the German cities and destroyed them completely.
“Uninvolved civilians” were blown to smithereens, burned to death or just disappeared. Dresden, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, was totally destroyed within a few hours in a “fire storm.”
The official aim was to destroy the German war industry, but this was not achieved. The real aim was to terrorise the civilian population in order to induce them to remove their leaders and capitulate.
That did not happen. The civilian population did not rise up. On the contrary, Germany did not capitulate until the very last moment. Millions of tons of bombs did not suffice. They only strengthened the morale of the population and its loyalty to the Fuehrer.
And so to Gaza. Everyone is asking — who is winning?
Which must be answered, the Jewish way, with another question — how to judge?
The classical definition of victory is the side that remains on the battlefield has won the battle. But here nobody has moved. Hamas is still there. So is Israel.
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian war theorist, famously declared that war is but the continuation of policy by other means. But in this war, neither side had any clear political aims. So victory cannot be judged this way.
The intensive bombing of the Gaza Strip has not produced a Hamas capitulation.
On the other hand, Hamas’s intensive rocket campaign, which covered most of Israel, did not succeed either.
The stunning success of the rockets to reach everywhere in Israel has been met with the stunning success of the “Iron Dome” counter-rockets to intercept them.
So, until now, it is a standoff. But when a tiny fighting force in a tiny territory achieves a standoff with one of the mightiest armies in the world, it can be considered a victory.
The lack of an Israeli political aim is the outcome of muddled thinking. The Israeli leadership, both political and military, does not really know how to deal with Hamas.
It may already have been forgotten that Hamas is largely an Israeli creation. During the first years of the occupation, when any political activity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was brutally suppressed, the only place where Palestinians could meet and organise was the mosque.
At the time, Fatah was considered Israel’s arch-enemy. The Israeli leadership was demonising Yasser Arafat, the arch-arch-terrorist. The Islamists, who hated Arafat, were considered the lesser evil, even secret allies.
I once asked the Shin-Bet chief at the time whether his organisation had created Hamas.
His answer: “We did not create them. We tolerated them.”
This changed only one year after the start of the first intifada, when the Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was arrested.
Since then reality has been completely reversed. Fatah is now an ally of Israel, from the security point of view, and Hamas the arch-arch-terrorist.
But is it? Some Israeli officers say that if Hamas did not exist, it would have to be invented. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. It provides law and order. It is a reliable partner for a ceasefire.
The last Palestinian elections, held under international monitoring, ended in a Hamas victory both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When Hamas was denied power, it took it in the Gaza Strip by force. By all reliable accounts, it enjoys the loyalty of the large majority in the territory.
All Israeli experts agree that if the Hamas regime in Gaza were to fall, far more extreme Islamist splinter groups would take over and plunge the strip, with its 1.8 million inhabitants, into complete chaos. The military experts don’t like that.
So the war aim, if one can dignify it as such, is not to destroy Hamas but to leave it in power though in a much weakened state. But how, for God’s sake, does one do that?
One way, demanded now by the ultra-rightwingers in the government, is to occupy all of the Gaza Strip. To which the military leaders again answer with a question — and then what?
A new permanent occupation of the strip is a military nightmare. It would mean that Israel assumes the responsibility for pacifying and feeding 1.8 million people — most of whom are 1948 refugees from Israel and their descendants. A permanent guerilla war would ensue.
Occupy and then leave? Easily said. The occupation itself would be a bloody operation. If the Molten Lead doctrine is adopted, it would mean thousands of Palestinian dead.
This (unwritten) doctrine says that if 100 Palestinians must be killed in order to save the life of one Israeli soldier, so be it.
But if Israeli casualties amount to even a few dozen dead, the mood in the country will change completely. The army does not want to risk that.
My own opinion is that it would be better if the Israeli army and Hamas negotiated directly. Throughout military history, ceasefires have been arranged by military commanders.
In the 1948 war, on my sector of the front, a short ceasefire was arranged by Major Yerucham Cohen and a young Egyptian officer called Gamal Abd-al-Nasser.
Since this seems to be impossible with the present parties, a really honest broker should be found.
In the meantime, Netanyahu was pushed by his colleagues/rivals to send the troops into the strip to try at least to locate and destroy the tunnels dug by Hamas under the border fence to stage surprise attacks on border settlements.
What will be the end of it? There will be no end, just round after round of bloodletting, unless a political solution is adopted.
This would mean — stop the rockets and the bombs, end the Israeli blockade, allow the people of Gaza to live a normal life, further Palestinian unity under a real unity government, conduct serious peace negotiations, make peace.
Uri Avnery is a former Knesset member and founder of Gush Shalom (www.gush-shalom.org). For more of his writing visit http://www.avnery-news.co.il
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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