The US must rein in Israel
Rime Allaf, June 1, 2010
It usually takes a high number of Palestinian deaths for the news media to deem the tragedy worth reporting. Unfortunately, regular killings of Palestinians by the Israeli army — or by Israeli settlers — are unnoticed and unmourned.
Likewise, the fate of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza (and 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank) has been all but ignored by governments too. Had it not been for the deadly Israeli raid on the Freedom Flotilla, it too would have been lost in a sea of forgotten humanitarian initiatives whose declared mission is not only to deliver aid to a desperate population besieged for the past three years, but also to break the inhuman Israeli (and Egyptian-assisted) blockade that no other government has supported as legal, let alone justified.
The killing of non-Palestinian civilians is not even close to being the worst atrocity committed by Israel; the resulting global outrage, however, is the clearest message yet that Israel’s actions have gone beyond the debatable, the justifiable, or the so-called disproportionate.
We all know that the time has come to hold Israel accountable for its deeds, that only the United States can do it and that most nations would cheer the end of Israel’s growing impunity. Forcing Israel to adhere to international law is not an option but an imperative: either Israel complies with international conventions and a regional modus vivendi, or it bears the consequences and endures sanctions like any other country.
The mantra about security and laments that Israel has no partners with whom to make peace have lost their punch. Long before Hamas even dreamed of electoral victory, Israel had already besieged the first Palestinian president. Yasser Arafat, who delivered the Oslo Accord to Israel, was under house arrest for years in humiliating and dangerous conditions, until his death, in a compound ruined by Israeli bombings. During Arafat’s tenure, Israel destroyed most of the Palestinian infrastructure (including the Gaza airport) financed by the international community and rejected a unanimous peace initiative from 22 Arab nations while continuing settlements on occupied land.
The problem, therefore, is not just Gaza, and it’s not just Hamas. Nor is it, for all its transgressions, the current Likud government, as Israel has a history of impunity even with its greatest supporters. It has often embarrassed allies when carrying out assassinations around the world (recently killing Hamas official Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai by agents holding fake British and other European passports). Moreover, Israel attacks its allies directly when it suits its purposes; perhaps because Congress never even asked for an inquiry, Americans seem to have forgotten Israel’s bombing of the USS Liberty in June 1967, killing 34 and wounding 171 U.S. navy servicemen.
The point is that there is a pattern to Israeli behavior that transcends governmental leanings or ideologies: for decades, Israel has been allowed to flout U.N. resolutions demanding its withdrawal from Arab territories, to violate other nations’ sovereignty and to commit war crimes — without consequences. The raid on the ships heading to Gaza was just another transgression, but the solution is not in Gaza itself.
Removing the Gaza blockade from the greater context of the Palestinian question is ludicrous and self-defeating. If Israel lived by international law, the security for the entire Levant would not be an issue anymore, nor would civilized nations be forced to renege on their own laws and principles in permitting the collective suffering of an entire nation to continue. The first step, undoubtedly, is to free Gaza unconditionally. The second, undoubtedly, is to enforce U.N. resolutions, thereby freeing Arab lands from occupation and setting the scene for a peaceful settlement.
For this to happen, the U.S. must rein in Israel.
Rime Allaf, a Syrian writer, is an international consultant and an associate fellow at Chatham House in London. She blogs at Mosaics.
https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/rethinking-the-gaza-blockade/
