Gaza
I’ve been away, (hence the lack of posts), but, as usual, the world has wobbled, in slack and appalling chaos beneath me. I’d thought that, initially, I’d have blogged today about awful and inappropriate Christmas mutterings of the pope. It seemed then that calling for a return to the pointless and poorly-reasoned castigation of homosexuality by the world’s most influential religious leader would be the most awful thing that happened over the period of my holiday (so, lets have ago at people who don’t do the supposedly ‘natural’ thing and breed, then, shall we? Let’s start with Catholic priests, then). Little did I imagine that the tinderbox in the Holy Land would be sparked once more on the tail fires of a rocket.
I am like anyone on the outside of it, unable to fully appreciate the motivations behind either side. It’s easy to criticise. The open contempt written upon the faces of European leaders as Tzipi Livni spoke yesterday summed up most of our feelings, I fear. We should be disappointed in all concerned.
Barack Obama, who will soon be representing the biggest supporter of Israel, the US, has remained cautiously quiet. I can’t say as I blame him – he has to deal with this when he’s in power, and defining his policies and opinions in advance of his influence will bring with it impossible expectations and a lack of flexibility. One thing that he has said in the past may well sum up a large proportion of pro-Israeli thinking, however -Visiting the Israeli town of Sderot in July, he suggested that he too would respond if rockets were being fired at his house. I heard this opinion echoed several times yesterday by various US spokespersons, one even going so far as to comment on what America’s response might be if the rockets were being shot from Canada. Ye gods. His name escapes me. That’s probably for the best.
All situations like this are unique, and ceasefires must be negotiated, but I assume that Tony Blair has been given the job, despite the obvious disadvantages he has, due to his supposed successes in Ireland and his clout with the US. Successful resolution of the conflict in Ireland (and, despite some of the remaining problems, let me simply state right now that anyone who tells you that it is not a success should think about the state Belfast was in during the eighties), however, was largely based upon an unwillingness in British Governments to escalate the conflict. I am not claiming here that the two situations are utterly alike. That would be idiotic, but I feel it might illustrate a point. The point is about dehumanisation and the identification of ‘the other’.
It is, of course, entirely possible – if highly unlikely – that the UK could have bombed Eire into the stone age in response to bombings on the mainland. Thankfully, it didn’t (although ten quid says that Dennis Thatcher suggested it – he was well known as being one of the few people capable of occupying the slim sliver of space to the right of Margaret). The situation in Northern Ireland was probably too integrated, and international condemnation would have been too serious, it would have ruined ties with America, the British population would have hated it (sadly, of course, probably not as much as you might imagine – we could rename the bulk of the UK’s population as “string ‘em up Britain” with fair accuracy), finding targets would have been difficult… there are countless pragmatic reasons why it would not have been a good policy, but I like to think that the main reason it wasn’t done was because it was just obviously the wrong thing to do. It felt wrong because Irish people cannot be dehumanised in the eyes of most Brits (despite our rather chequered past) – they are not ‘the others’, they are not ‘the enemy’ – they are of ‘us’.
Eire just isn’t seen as a valid target for military action any more. Few people living in the 20th century would ever have considered it so. Bombing Dublin or Limerick would feel like bombing Leeds or Bradford just because the ‘7/7’ terrorists were supposedly from there. The situation with Hamas makes this politically very different, but the reasons why Israel shouldn’t respond in the way it does are essentially the same. Bombing the Palestinians – bombing anyone for that matter – should feel like what it is. It should feel like killing people, no matter how mad you are at them. And it should feel like that to us, too. What is happening in Gaza right now is a terrible amount of suffering is being inflicted on one group of people by another. You might argue that Hamas should consider the same thing, and you’d be right. But at some point one side or the other has to be the bigger party. If Israel wants to assert its moral superiority here, then let it do so. For sure it has the right to do something about the rocket attacks, but it must always consider exactly what that thing to do must be. Everyone has to live with the consequences of their actions. And at the moment, the action is the killing of many, many people, most of whom are in no position to defend themselves.
As for Obama suggesting that he too would ‘respond’ to rockets fired at his house, I hope that this means that he feels personal sympathy with the victims of rocket attacks in Israel, and not that this means he supports heavy military responses to terrorist strikes. Recognising the humanity of your opponents, and refusing to set them up as a dehumanised, enemy ‘other’, would, in my opinion, lead to treating terrorism as a criminal act rather than an act of war. ‘Wars on terror’ are a sick joke at best and an ill-told lie in the case of Iraq. And they have killed too many people already.
Whilst I’ve been writing this, the Israeli’s have, apparently, destroyed a UN-run school in Gaza, where civilians were sheltering. The moral high ground must look very distant from where they are now.