Norman Finkelstein and I have argued in emails about awful stuff Hamas did or didn't do during the '08-09 war. I say they used human shields, Finkelstein says there's no evidence of this in the human-rights reports. Though yes, he says, the reports show that they carried out revenge killings of collaborators.
Last week Finkelstein and I had a meal with a third friend and Finkelstein told some stories about his mother and father in the Warsaw Ghetto. I’d known that his parents were concentration camp survivors, I didn’t know they were in the Warsaw Ghetto. I said, How do you feel when I say that Gaza reminds me of what I learned about the Warsaw Ghetto as a boy?
Finkelstein said, I don’t really have a problem with it. My mother never said, "Do not compare." She always told about her experience not to keep it hers, but to embrace others with her suffering. She didn’t see it as the unique property of the Jews.
That said, Finkelstein went on, I don’t know that you have to compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. It is its own situation, and its own horror. Why not talk about each thing in its own right?
We asked how Finkelstein had learned about his parents' experience, and he said it was when he was 8 and 9. The Holocaust was being explored in popular works, and his mother brought them home in the stack of books she got every week from the library in Brooklyn. Leon Uris’s Mila-18, John Hersey’s The Wall.
Finkelstein looked up from the books to his prim mother, not believing she had been in such a place.
He related some of the shocking stories. People dug catacombs to hide in with their bare hands. No one had implements. There were bodies littering the streets, and no one had anything to eat. Anyone who had a gun used it. The Jewish police were the worst collaborators. Some brought the Nazis to their own parents. When the head of the Jewish police was killed by the Jewish resistance, a sign was put next to him: “He lived like a dog, he died like a dog.”
It is for this reason, Finkelstein said, that when I hear stories about desperate or vicious behavior in Gaza, I am loath to judge the resistance.
And he gave me a look.
[I would urge all readers to read the first chapter of Finkelstein’s own memoir, Haunted House]
Philip,
Please tell me that you didn’t just call the one-sided slaughter of Palestinian civilians in what the Israeli army called Operation Cast Lead, “the ’08-09 war”.
That is a disgusting euphemism. There was no “war”.
I agree, there was no war. At best it was a police action, the rockets being puny, acts of criminals (if you will) rather than acts of a national army. The problem (also with USA) is that the desire to spare one’s own soldiers the danger of being injured (giving the lie as far as possible to the miserable neologism “in harm’s way”) makes these GRAND ARMIES punish enemies from afar (usually with death) with expensive weapons instead of coming in and arresting people, as appropriate for crimes.
Moreover (and this is the main point, really), Israel sought to prove to its many audiences that it was a tyrant not to be messed with, and this proof was the point of the operation, not punishing Hamas for anything.
“In harm’s way” is no neologism, unless you consider John Paul Jones recent:
And this retired lieutenant commander can testify that that saying is a favorite one in the U.S. Navy.
You say that based on what evidence exactly?
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The “08-09 war”?
Is that like the “War of 1812″?
Why not call it the “Israeli Massacre in Gaza” as you’ve called it hundreds of times before?
If this is an attempt at softening the language in order to appeal to “liberal Zionists”, then it does no one justice, neither the victims nor your integrity.
I agree with this objection. Without checking, I’d say Norman Finkelstein called it the “Gaza Massacre”.
I don’t agree with Finkelstein on that last one. We can refrain from publicly criticizing Hamas, because someone else is already doing it, and because Hamas doesn’t have an army of defenders like Israel has. But we can’t not judge actions that are objectively irrational and morally wrong, like firing rockets on civilian areas.
Ah, but to what extent is it Hamas that is firing those rockets?
lysias
“Ah, but to what extent is it Hamas that is firing those rockets?”
That’s a good point considering how many times israel has been caught running those sorts of black ops.
While this may occur (Israel faking rocket) the problem seems to be more that, despite efforts, not all groups in Gaza agree with Hamas’ efforts to eliminate the rockets.
I don’t have a link but recall during April Hamas announced they’d secured agreements from 4 groups (incl. Al Qassam Brigades) to end the firing of rockets. It was a few days after this I believe:
“Hamas ‘working to curb Gaza rocket attacks’”
link to news.bbc.co.uk
i agree w/norm. I am loath to judge the resistance.
We know from Milgram that people can do all sorts of disturbing things even when subjected to slight pressures or power imbalance. I can only imagine what spending one’s entire life in a situation of massive oppression and untrustworthiness can do to people. Would we fare any better than some of the darker elements of Hamas? Impossible to say. Ehud Barak himself said “”I would have joined a terrorist organization.” if he were born a Palestinian. I’m reminded by John Pilger’s look at the motivating factors of Wafa Idris, a female suicide bomber, in his documentary @ 13 minutes 20 seconds: link to video.google.com
That said, I believe (and any devout Muslim would believe) that there are absolute standards that can’t be compromised. Suicide bombings clearly break that standard (link to tinyurl.com
and maybe there are some other transgressions.
So how to resolve these two points? I guess the answer is neither to excuse such actions as justified, nor to insist on lockstep reduction in violence on both sides (which favours the oppressor), but to prioritize and put root causes (the injustices of colonization) first; when those are resolved, these follow-on problems are likely to vanish in an instant. Resistance, measured or not, is a foreseeable symptom of the occupation, not its cause, and we have to avoid the danger of a recursive loop which makes it seem otherwise.
I am with you, Annie.
I also happen to think there is no greater scum on this earth than collaborators. It’s hard to insist on the rule of law in this circumstance, unfortunately.
ANNIE- I agree. All of the violence in and around Gaza, including the home-made rocket attacks by Hamas and others not under their control, is a consequence of the illegal occupation and blockade. Israel initiated the blockade long before there were any rocket attacks. Noam Chomsky summarizes the situation thusly:
“In June 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement. The Israeli government formally acknowledges that until Israel broke the agreement on Nov. 4 of that year, invading Gaza and killing half a dozen Hamas activists, Hamas did not fire a single rocket.
Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire. The Israeli cabinet considered the offer and rejected it, preferring to launch its murderous invasion of Gaza on Dec.27.
Like other states, Israel has the right of self-defense. But did Israel have the right to use force in Gaza in the name of self-defense? International law, including the U.N. Charter, is unambiguous: A nation has such a right only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case such means were not even tried, although-or perhaps because-there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed.
Thus the invasion was sheer criminal aggression, and the same is true of Israel’s resorting to force against the flotilla.
The siege is savage, designed to keep the caged animals barely alive so as to fend off international protest, but hardly more than that. It is the latest stage of longstanding Israeli plans, backed by the U.S., to separate Gaza from the West Bank.”
i’m also curious what led you to believe hamas used human shields? it doesn’t really make sense to me they would use their own people, their own children and civilians to hide behind. it goes against human instinct. he only human shield i could conceive of them using would be possibly bunkering w/galid assuming if the israelis knew where he was they wouldn’t target him. or collaborators or something. but there weren’t really battles in the massacre. it is very curious you would come to this conclusion because it’s such a repeated accusation of demonization from israelis and it has been documented how they have used this tactic themselves and recorded on video.
hmm. one might imagine if any gazans had been used in this way their would be some accounting of it thru the investigation, unless you think perhaps people are just so afraid of hamas they would not mention it. but i think in that massacre gazans were likely feeling rather united in their fear and their solidarity.
i should add
it has been documented how they have used this tactic themselves and recorded on video
meaning they have used palestinians as human shields not their own people. one could also view the holding of a captive (as on the mari marmara) as using a human shield. that is different than using your own civilians. there’s just no evidence of combatants firing or operating out of homes w/civilians in them. it would be a death sentence for anyone in those houses.
Wouldn’t the Israeli propaganda office be capable of producing some photographic evidence of Hamas using human shields during Cast Lead?
They could produce images that were favorable to them on the Mavi.
yes they could and i saw one, perhaps it was from lebanon. the only problem is with professional scrutiny they can be unmasked for what they are, therefore they are only useful for propaganda purposes.
The HAMAS used people as human shields line is also bizarre. Here’s what some other Jewish dude who investigated that accusation concluded about it. I forget his name. Gold-something. Goldpebble? No that’s not it? Goldrock? Damn, I just can’t remember his name at all:
Doesn’t the use of human shields presuppose that the Israeli wouldn’t fire if they would injure Palestinian civilians? Why would any Palestinian believe that? An earlier version goes back at least to the siege of Beirut were Arafat was supposedly using the citizens as hostages. A variation on the theme is that the Palestinian fighters should stand in the middle of an open field and shoot their popguns at F16′s, Merekvas, and Apache attack helicopters and not hide behind civilians, you know, like Churchill did in London.
You make the most salient point of the discussion!
Just an addition:
The Goldstone report found no evidence Hamas used human shields but Israel did!
Desmond Travers ( co-author of the Goldstone report) : The IDF regularly used the human shield tactic
“The Goldstone report found no evidence Hamas used human shields but Israel did!”
Israel did use human shields that is!
TGIMA- Excellent post! This is the type of information we all need to be aware of.
I applaud Phil for taking a hard look at what occurred, and for speaking it to Norman Finkelstein.
I don’t know if Norman is correct that Hamas did not use individual Palestinians as human shields. I personally wouldn’t say one way or another.
I do say that the Hamas escalation of shelling created a social human shield for Hamas to bait Israel, for Israel to snap at that bait and respond excessively, then for Hamas and solidarity to state “Israel caused it all”.
The proponents of the escalation of shelling of civilians in Israel were different people that bore the brunt of the Israeli military effort. The proponents of the fear engendered in the IDF (that “Hamas cadre will make the Gazan streets flow with Israeli blood”), leading to a more preparatory conventional war approach on the part of Israel, is Hamas’ responsibility.
Its a similar “success” to the Free Gaza success.
The heroes in Hamas are the ones that serve their communities with social welfare, medicine, education. The less than heroes are the ones that martyr quickly (suicide bombing), or anger only.
Regarding your “social human shield” concept, I wonder if you would apply the same logic to Israel’s many, many escalations against Palestinian civilians. Does that make Israeli society a “social human shield,” too?
There was nothing conventional about the Gaza war. Conventional suggest two military forces fighting each other in a battlefield. This was a ‘war’ against civilians, civilian infrastructure, and property. Nothing conventional about that.
>> I do say that the Hamas escalation of shelling created a social human shield for Hamas to bait Israel, for Israel to snap at that bait and respond excessively, then for Hamas and solidarity to state “Israel caused it all”.
When Israel sets “bait” and peaceful protesters “snap” at it – and, as a result, are injured or killed – it is the fault of the protesters who failed to “nurture” and to respond with “better arguments”. When Hamas sets “bait” and the Israeli military machine “snaps” at it with excessive violence, mass destruction and illegal munitions, it is the fault of…Hamas and its supporters. Israel, which failed to “nurture” and make the “better arguments”, is once again the victim.
“Remember the Holocaust!”
Avi,
You should praise Phil for his method of giving voice to Norman’s comments. He is playing “straight-man” in this.
It’s rather odd that you found it necessary to single me out of all the other commenters here who have voiced the same concern over the use of said phrases by Phil. It’s really odd. Is that what it comes down to with you, creating friction where there is none, and doing so with malice and rancor?
It comes down to you being the first comment that I read.
“If this is an attempt at softening the language in order to appeal to “liberal Zionists”, then it does no one justice, neither the victims nor your integrity.”
I guess this isn’t criticism, so much as your attempt at politically correct discipline.
That means a lot coming from you, you know, seeing as how you have yet to come to terms with the simple fact that the Palestinians are human beings and that Jewish supremacy – in the form of Israel – is immoral.
More derailment, distraction and nonsense from the petulant Richard Aryan.
Avi,
When you make statements like that, obviously not having read posts in my own publications, entirely free from the tit for tat here, you indicate your bias, not mine.
Its obvious that my views differ from the advocates for resistance that assemble here.
If you only bear contempt for liberal Zionists, then you limit your audience to the cadre and potential cadre, a small minority.
The logic of “give me 100 good solidarity and we will change the world” conflicts with the ideals of democracy. Its force.
I personally have dabbled with that egotistical track in the early 70′s, and thankfully rejected it.
“I personally have dabbled with that egotistical track in the early 70’s…”
You don’t need to tell us that Witty, it’s freakin’ obvious.
Phil – I agree that it is bizarre to assert that Hamas used human shields based merely on your feeling, without any supporting evidence. Is there any other national group that is subject to such flimsy intellectual standards?
I would add that calling the execution of collaborators “revenge killings” is conclusory. What makes you so certain that revenge was the sole or primary motive behind these killings? I would argue that these killings are more punishment than pure vengeance — revenge is a factor, but so is deterrence, etc.
I would argue that these killings are more punishment than pure vengeance
i would argue they are also to prevent them from future coercion.
Well, anyone born before/during/around the war in Europe can tell you: we grew up listening to the stories of the Resistance and learned that the elimination of collaborators is an urgent matter of group survival. Nothing to do with revenge or even punishment. When, to translate it in terms of Israeli occupation, entire families get blown up with the apartment buildings, or whole groups killed by rocket fire and so on, it’s because the “finger” has not been correctly identified and taken out in time. With the extreme misery forced on the Palestinian people there is no shortage of traitors at all levels.
AZYTHOS- Good point. Things tend to look different when viewed from middle class comfort and security than when viewed subjected to terror, your life in constant danger. A Central American revolutionary told a visiting American peace activist not to talk to him about King and Gandhi. He said that in his country both would have been murdered within one week.
Or on the case of Palestine, deported or imprisoned (if not executed).
I’m actually surprised Mustapha Barghouti hasn’t been jailed.
nigel parry: i think it was “goldfinger”.
on the “human shields” bit: it’s been acknowledged that whether or not hamas actively used civilians as shields, israel did as well by putting guns to the back of citizen noncombatants and making them open doors and walk into what may have been booby-trapped buildings. and in hamas’ case, i’d also keep in mind what chomsky (or it may have been finkelstein, actually):
“are they supposed to run into an open field and say ‘hey! we’re over here! fight us!’?” there’s also the matter of being crammed into a ghetto (let’s call a spade a spade) where it’s not exactly easy to spread out and get away from populated areas.
as for the rockets, quite a few have been fired by the al-aqsa brigade – an arm of fatah that doesn’t exactly care for hamas. that might also explain some of the “collaborationist purges” after cast lead, since hamas admitted as much and claimed there were fatah members instigating and aiding the israelis. not an excuse at all, but i agree 100% with finkelstein that it’s not fair to judge. desperate times, desperate measures and all that.
sorry if i beat any dead horses there; i haven’t read all the previous comments.
i classify executing collaborators in a category of human instinct. it isn’t my instinct (tho i have not been challenged) but this is not uncommon. if not done officially it is simply something certain people take into their own hands. i often wonder if tillman was killed in such a way after he turned on the war. i also recall 3 soldiers from iraq who were very critical of the operations and cited in the nyt. within a few months all of them were dead. one on combat, another an ‘accident’. think of kasztner. think of those calling for the death of Zoaby on facebook. in this regard hamas is no different. the punishment for treason is death in many cultures, i fail to see why we should judge hamas any more harshly than we would judge others under similar circumstances.
That was it, Justice Goldfinger!
Anyway, from his report about the human shields:
“Civilians were used as human shields by the Israeli armed forces on more than one occasion in one of the three incidents. Taking account of other incidents in which the Mission has found this to have happened, it would not be difficult to conclude that this was a practice repeatedly adopted by the Israeli armed forces during the military operation in Gaza.”
Shit I have a photo of the “IDF” with a kid of about 12 handcuffed to the mesh window guard of their Landrover. The Isreali use of human-shields is routine even in the case of “riot-control”. This was a famous photo I’m sure most of you have seen it. Gaza being one of the most densely populated spaces in the world, it’s a not a surprise that some militants were covering in civilian areas. I mean its not the battle of Kursk. Hamas knows full well Israel has no compunction to leveling populated areas, so what would be the advantage? They are part of the population.
Considering how often Israelis kill Palestinian civilians when there’s no one attacking at all, I don’t see how Hamas could rightly even expect using human shields to be worth trying. Even if the humans in questions were people Hamas wanted dead anyway, they’d be better off running in opposite directions just to better the odds one might get away. Did some JDL thugs have a conversation with you Phil, or what in the world is going on here?
Oh yeah, as for excusing the resistance; both sides comment terrorists acts by attacking non-combats. I see no reason to give either a side pass; Hamas and Israel are both terrorists organizations. That goes for Fatah too as, as while the are largely sold out to Israel, best I can tell their al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade still has tacit aproval to launch rockets on Israeli comunities whwnever they feel the urge.
“tacit approval to launch rockets on Israeli communities whenever they feel the urge” that is, my typing went way off at the end there, and I just hit summit reflexively anyway due to a lack of sleep.
The National in Dubai is reporting that Ha’aretz is reporting that unnamed European officials have told the paper that they were briefed by White House officials that Abbas, on his recent visit to Washington, asked Obama to keep the blockade of Gaza in place, but the PA denounces the report as Israeli propaganda: Did Abbas ask for siege of Gaza to be kept in place?:
How’s that for convoluted reporting? Circles within circles.
Meanwhile, here’s what I find in Ha’aretz: Hamas rejects Abbas insistence on supervising Gaza aid: Abbas calls PA ‘legitimate government’ of Gaza, while Hamas says: Abbas doesn’t exist here.:
Not quite the same thing as asking Washington to keep the blockade in place. But close.
I still don’t understand why Abbas thinks he’s relevant at all. Not only did he betray humanity by opposing the Goldstone report like Israel did, but he continues to act as though he was actually elected. Never mind the fact that his term expired last year, anyway.
Here’s the Ha’aretz report you were looking for, full text follows:
link to haaretz.com
Didn’t Abbas lend a hand to kill the Goldstone Report?
The PA did initially oppose the UN taking up the Goldstone Report (allegedly, according to some reports, because the Israelis coerced him by threatening to reveal how he had supported Operation Cast Lead). The PA was quickly forced by Palestinian popular opinion to reverse its position on the Goldstone Report.
Abbas probably eats Palestinian and Jewish babies on toast for breakfast. Nothing should be surprising from that worthless, unelected collaborator.
meen bidoo yakoun malik jebel al-khara?
(“Who wants to be the king of Shit Mountain?”)
On executing collaborators.
Its a paranoid process, rational when in a paranoid setting. Those undertaking solidarity resistance are notorious for it.
First, they are often infiltrated and can’t honestly tell who is their trusted friend from their betraying foe. Second, they are objectively in great danger, not for their opinions but for their actions.
If they undertake terror then they are not even in the judicial system.
The conditions that create summary judgement are faux discipline. Violent enemies made enemies by violence.
Worried?
About your summary and ill-informed judgement, definitely.
When your judgement seems to include multiple perspectives, then I’ll regard your comments as more than just a fighter’s.
While you were burying your head in the sand, a Jewish American college student lost her eye to Zionism.
Any comments about that? Or are you still ignoring the truths that get in the way of your fanaticism?
Witty, is executing collaborators something you know a damn thing about? Something you’ve been concerned with? Something you have experience with? In that case, shut up, huh?
Witty’s got the ziocaine omniscience syndrome, bad, and (as the song says) that ain’t good. The rush from a ziocaine high makes habitues feel so righteous and knowledgeable, they think they know, and can judge, anything and everything. It’s one of ziocaine’s most insidious and mentally destructive effects.
Witty, that’s your brain on ziocaine
People executed nazi collaborators after WW2, certainly not enough of them, as there was plenty of them left over to help the cia for many years after the war – in their new wars. I guess it’s rather obvious I have little sympathy for those who aide oppressors.