The views from Gaza were horrible, where hundreds of children were killed during the Israeli assault. Devastating stories come also from the Israeli side, where kids in Sderot have lived under fire for the last 8 years.
Was this war really necessary? In the last six months before the war there had been a cease fire between Israel and the Hamas. This was a peaceful solution for both problems. No dead Palestinians, no rockets on Israel. Who ended the truce?
The views are conflicting (obviously). Israel argues that the Hamas ended the truce, while the Palestinians argue that it was Israel.
The Hamas was the first to declare the truce was over. Certainly, they made the political mistake. More accurately, they announced that they are not renewing it after 6 months.
What is less known is that this was a result of an Israeli attack in Gaza, and thus de facto, it was Israel who broke the truce.
Here is the full story:
And for those who need more references, here they are.
Notice that the Israeli attack took place on November 4th, the day of elections in America. A coincidence or an attempt to avoid the media? (surprisingly, the current war ended right before inauguration, not to upset the new boss).
Anyhow, as an Israeli, I found the whole thing quite disturbing. Was Israel really the first to break the cease fire? So I asked a friend of mine who lives in Sderot. Yes, she is one of those who were attacked almost daily for the last eight years, until the cease fire broke. Surely, she knows when rockets were falling and when not. And here is what she said (Hebrew followed by my translation):
בינתיים צה"ל ממשיך לכתוש גם הלילה, בשביל האגו של מנהיגנו שלא מסוגלים לסיים את הפרשה ורבים על הקרדיט. פשוט נורא."
Translation: "This is true. Several missiles were fired here and there, but not by the Hamas. We know from our friends in Gaza that the Hamas indeed enforced the cease fire with an iron fist. Israel broke the truce first with the tunnel story and then with the mines. Israeli killed 20 Palestinians, so then they took their turn, and the rest is known. Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to pound this night too, for the ego of our leaders that cannot end the story and fight over the credit. Simply horrible."
(January 14, 2009)
We heard similar things during an event we held here in Pittsburgh. On the line is Eric Yellin, another friend form Sderot (his blog is certainly worth reading).
Btw, also the main-stream Israeli media acknowledges it. Only that according to Israeli estimates, the Israeli attacks should not have caused the Hamas to break the truce (Hebrew only, sorry).
Let me make several things clear:
- No Hamas rockets on civilians in Israel are legitimate, of course, even if Israel was the first to break the truce.
- Hamas wanted to continue the truce not to work on its flower garden, but to rebuild its army.
- Perhaps the Israeli attack on November 4th was necessary.
Still, there was a truce, no people were hurt on either side of the border, Israel broke it, and now it is lying. If these facts are wrong, please show me where.
So I went on to study this issue. How do truces between Israel and the Palestinians end? This post examines who was the first to kill after days of non-violence. It found that "it is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict: 79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks (the remaining 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same day)."
In other words, after quiet days, it is usually Israel that is the first to reignite violence. This is even clearer when looking at longer periods of no violence:
"of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days."
I certainly do not justify the rockets on Israel. As said earlier, I have friends with children that live under these attacks. The Hamas is a terror organization. I simply examines the deeds of my people, looking at myself in the mirror. Is Israel much better?
But why does Israel do that? Unlike the facts written above, these are speculations. I will address these some other time. May we all have a quiet year.
Posts
Thank you for more insite into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Yes I have found that Israel broke truce but I agree with you that the rockets coming from Palestine is wrong. That should not be condoned also. My heart goes out for all victims on both sides. Especially the children.
ReplyDeleteI am going to add you to my blog roll. More need to hear what you have to say.
This is a very touching post, but sadly, very misleading.
ReplyDeleteI find it disturbing to count who broke the truce how many times, since the term truce is greatly misleading. The term is הודנה or תהדיה and you are free to check that these terms are not equal to the truce term.
But if you want to try and figure out who broke the last truce, well it is written clearly in your blog - "Several missiles were fired ...". Of course it is very convenient to claim that someone else did it, but then again who is in control there?
And just a last remark, Hamas is recognized around the world as a terror organization. Hamas took over the Gaza strip by brute force from the Palestinian Authority, it was not elected as some point out. And as a terror organization it's goal is to strike fear into the hearts of people. It openly calls for the Annihilation of Israel
Chet, I second every word you wrote. Hope for a brighter future, and thanks for the support.
ReplyDeleteebenami2, thanks for the thoughtful comments. Let me respond one by one, since you make interesting observations.
First you correct my lingual use of the word 'truce'. You are 100% correct, but why does it matter? The data shows that Israel was the first to kill after 80% of no-violence days and 94% of no-violence weeks. Does it really matter how we call it?
You go on to comment about the missiles that were fired during the truce, even though not by the Hamas, and you ask who should take responsibility for those. Unfortunately, there is a clear parallel here too. The settlers often exercise violence against palestinians. Israel does not hold itself responsible for their actions. On the contrary, Israel pursues them and judges them as it finds necessary. When settlers go wild in Hebron, Israel does not consider itself violating the Hebron agreement? When settlers create new illegal settlements, does Israel acknowledge it violated the terms of the US support or the Oslo agreements? We should apply the same standards here. As long as the Hamas fights the individuals who break the truce, and it does so with relative success, than it is keeping the truce. We should avoid double standards.
Then you make an interesting point about the Hamas being a terror organization that took over Gaza by force. You are right to a certain extent, but again, this is irrelevant to the argument. If anything, it supports the argument the post makes - Not only Israel was the first to erupt after periods of nonviolence, it also did much worse than a terror organization.
Is this something to be proud of?
Btw, ebenami2, I have a strong feeling that you danced on my shoulders at your wedding... kisses to the wife :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Makes me more sure there are good and bad people on every sides :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting us know.
I'm a friend of Chet, and I also want to add you to my bloglist if you don't mind.
Take care
Nina
I am pretty sure that I danced on a couple of shoulders and that yours where one of them...
ReplyDeleteAnd just to let my Polish roots have their saying, this is the first answer that we got from you since you left our small country.
We would be happy to exchange more of these, but I think that there are a couple of less public means to do so :)
Back to the main debate, there is a very good reason why I corrected your lingual use of the word 'truce'. The question is what the other side is doing during the so called "truce". Are they trying to make it last for as long as possible, or are they just taking a timeout to prepare the next attack.
The lingual correction that I made implies that the latter is the case*. And so comes the next question, if you know that a terrorist organization is preparing for the next blow are you supposed to sit and wait for it to happen (just for the sake of good statistics)? Or are you supposed to stop the attack?
About the second argument. Israel is completely responsible for all of it's citizens and for all of their actions. You never hear Israel saying that it's not us, it is the settlers. How Israel chooses to deal with these individual actions is a different subject.
Now to my best knowledge, before the "truce" it was Hamas that launched rockets at Israel. After the "truce" it was again Hamas that fired the rockets. But, surprisingly enough, during the "truce" there are individuals that fire rockets? The parallelism that you made between Israeli settlers and the "individuals" who fire rockets is like saying that it wasn't Israel who attacked in Gaza during the "truce" but some individual, and Israel is doing it's best to bring him to justice. I have a feeling that the last line wouldn't catch as being very reliable.
And about your last claim, I don't think that anyone wants to cause suffering to innocent civilians. But alas, my last sentence is definitely wrong because Hamas had no problem bobby trapping houses and schools with civilians inside them. It is Hamas that fires rockets from within civilian concentrations. It is Hamas that uses small children to transport weapons.
If you have a better solution on how to fight terrorists that have no problem using civilians as shields at the first line of fire, then I think that many would love to learn.
And lastly after reading the original post again and reading the Nancy Kanwisher post, I found my self very troubled by your definition of "truce" or "non-violence". Your definition comes down only to who killed first, it has no saying about non deadly attacks. So, by your definition as long as no one gets killed we are in a time of "non-violence"?
*Tucked away at the very end of the original Nancy Kanwisher piece is the Israeli account of the events leading to the erosion of the ceasefire:
"...on November 4. Following information about Hamas's preparations to abduct IDF soldiers through a tunnel, the IDF operated near the border. The operation prevented the planned attack and killed seven Hamas terrorist operatives. Hamas reacted with massive rocket and mortar shell fire... Israel responded by closing the Gaza Strip crossings."
"...on November 12, when the IDF killed four Hamas terrorist operatives who tried to lay an IED near the border security fence."
Secondly, before the 6 month "truce" Hamas had rockets with a range of 16 km. After the truce suddenly the range of the rockets jumped up to 40 km. What was Hamas doing during the "truce" preparing for peace, or preparing to be able to attack more and more civilians?
And the last point, which I am not 100% sure about, is that part of the "truce" agreement was that Hamas stopped smuggling weapons into Gaza. No need to say that it is pretty obvious that for the entire time Hamas has violated the agreement.
Nina - thanks for the kind words, and thanks for revealing me to your world.
ReplyDeleteEran - As you can assume, I do not agree with your 'facts' or interpretations, but I don't want to get into a debate, since I think we both made our views clear enough.