Let’s not kid ourselves. Nobody wants war for the sake of war. People, especially trigger-happy outfits like Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) , are incredibly rational in their decisions. Every encounter they have had with one another are meticulously linked to a cause. Israel justifies its current bombing campaign by saying that it wants to stop Hamas operatives from launching their woefully inaccurate Qassam rockets into Israeli cities. Hamas says that it is taking up arms because Israel continues to ‘occupy’ Gaza. The militant group’s position is decidedly odd, not least because Israel’s occupation of Gaza officially came to an end in 2004.
Did it? Gaza today is a virtual prison, thanks to Ariel Sharon’s deliberate ambiguity when he proposed his disengagement plan in 2004. Sharon is no stranger to selective truth-telling when it serves a cause he believes in. It’s happened before. In the 80s, in order to make a war in Lebanon more palatable to the Isreali Knesset, Sharon insisted that the armed forces would go nowhere near Lebanon’s capital Beirut, and would stay within 45 kilometers north of the Israeli border 1. The orders to his army chiefs, however, were entriely different. They were to penetrate deep into Lebanon and reach Beirut. This objective was also known by the Lebanese Maronite Christian leadership, who were in cahoots with Israel. In the end, Israel was drawn into an expensive and protracted occupation masterminded by Sharon from the beginning.
The society and economy of Gaza are locked on all sides by an Israeli stranglehold. Gaza’s ex-occupiers have now become its most earnest prison guards. Sharon certainly made no secret of his overarching plans. The international media was distracted enough by the impressive troop withdrawals and the emotional outpourings of Jewish settlers who were forcibly evicted from their homes in Gaza not to pay any attention to the fact that at the end of the day, control over Gaza’s airspace, sea crossings and land borders still remained firmly in Israel’s hands.
In a study provocatively named One Big Prison, the highly-respected human-rights organization B’Tselem argued that Israel’s absolute hold over Gaza’s land borders, sea crossings and air space was crippling Gaza’s economy, though Israel insists that the blockade is necessary to disarm Hamas. In December 2008, World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick warned Israel that its restrictions on cash shipments to Gaza banks, meant to weaken the territory’s Hamas rulers, are largely counterproductive and ultimately harm Palestinian moderates.
From the outset, Hamas has never been ambigious about how it views Israel’s actions. In a foreshadowing of the current conflict, a top Hamas official warned in 2004: “If they are going to be on the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt, this means a partial occupation. So, Hamas will continue the resistance to the existence of the occupation of any square meter.”
Should we be surprised that Hamas and Israel are at each other’s throats again? Until Israel disengages from Gaza in the truest sense of the word, Gaza and its leaders are never going to lay down their arms. The bloodshed will continue. Whole generations of Jews and Arabs will be raised and suckled on the milk of hatred and assured vengeance.
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