In early August, Israel carried out missile strikes in Gaza that killed 49 Palestinians including 17 children — strikes that were characterized as “cruel” and “an orgy of violence” by friends of Palestinians here. “The lives of the Palestinian people are not disposable,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib wrote, and added that it was “sickening” that our leaders “ignore and fund the aggressive violence and killing of Palestinian lives, especially children.”
Actually, Palestinian lives are disposable for many in Washington. The Israel Policy Forum, an American Jewish Zionist organization that advocates for Israel, aired an hour-long assessment of the attacks on August 10– and never mentioned those Palestinian civilian deaths.
Two Israeli journalists on the podcast, Amos Harel of Haaretz and Neri Zilber of Israel Policy Forum, characterized the onslaught as a great success for Israel and dwelt on the fact that there were no casualties in Israel. They praised Israel’s “pinpoint” strikes, and simply left out the 17 children and other Palestinian civilians killed.
In his one reference to the Palestinian deaths, Harel said that Israel had demonstrated that it was “very good” at avoiding killing Palestinian civilians.
Anti-Palestinian racism remains the norm in the Israel lobby and in Washington too. The Israel Policy Forum has a board of Washington heavy-hitters, including Martin Indyk and Alan Solow and Susie Gelman, as well as entertainment exec Rick Rosen and Reform Jewish leader Daryl Messinger. It has support from among others the Schusterman Foundation, which backs liberal causes such as voting rights and criminal justice reform, in addition to rightwing pro-Israel ones. “We are trusted as a reliable resource in Washington and the Jewish commmunity,” IPF likes to say.
Let’s review some of what Harel and Zilber said. The two men’s wrapup of the onslaught spoke of killing militants but left out the Palestinian civilians.
“Israel won this round,” Zilber said. “Some would say it’s never the case with these murky inconclusive Gaza campaigns. But this time around Israel did major damage to Islamic Jihad, killing most of the group’s senior field commanders and degrading a lot of its military assets…. On the flip side, Islamic Jihad fired nearly 1000 rockets and mortars into Israel. Not only were there no real casualties or injuries on the Israeli side…”
“This was a significant achievement,” Harel said of the attacks, and he too focused on the Israeli body count. “Israel prevented Islamic Jihad from reaching any kind of major military achievement, or causing much harm. No Israelis have died during this round of violence.”
Both said Israel carried out “pinpoint” attacks. Zilber said Israeli intelligence had demonstrated an ability “to pinpoint and locate a lot of the senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders inside Gaza, pretty remarkable, finding them in apartments and safe houses.”
While Harel said that enemies’ military analysts must recognize “the fact that the Israelis were very good at discovering where the enemy leaders were hiding, the fact that they could operate so many pinpoint attacks, the fact that under these conditions they they– they didn’t avoid completely but they were very successful at avoiding the deaths of civilians.”
Zilber said the assassinations feed into Israeli “deterrence” of enemies from Gaza to Hezbollah to Tehran. “No one is safe.”
Harel was more skeptical of military p.r., but he said Jews everywhere want to know that Israel can pound Palestinians.
The politicians and top brass… have an image to keep and they have to convince the home crowd so to speak that they were successful, and they maintained our military edge over the competition. Because this is something very basic to the Israeli society, to Jews at large, maintaining the safety of Israel, and how do you do that? By keeping strong, by threatening your enemies and by deterring them from the actual idea of trying anything. You remember those road signs in New York– Don’t even think of parking here. That’s the same kind of thing.
Harel praised the brevity of the onslaught, three days, as opposed to 50- and 11- and 8-day Gaza operations under Netanyahu. Astonishingly, he said that Netanyahu had extended those attacks on Gaza for a photo-opp.
Some of those operations under Netanyahu, one of the reasons why they didn’t end after a few days, as was usually the better option, part of this was the endless search for some kind of photograph which would mean victory, something that could be presented to the people of Israel as an image that would actually show that we had beaten the other side. Lapid was less anxious about that. And he allowed the army to push for a very quick ceasefire. In my mind this was a very good thing.
Harel said that Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid had passed an important test to Israeli voters, that he could handle security issues, he is capable of hitting Palestinians hard.
There was always a question mark about Lapid, because of the fact as an 18-year-old he served in the army newspaper… a journalist… not a commando fighter…
On his first test, I wouldn’t say that he passed with flying colors, but he did rather well. He showed common sense, he showed restraint, and he didn’t lose control of the situation. This is important to him as he faces the elections in November…
Before the attack, Netanyahu’s party had attacked Lapid as a “coward.” Lapid showed he’s not soft.
The whole image of the events changed once Israel reacted with a surprise attack in which it killed some of the Islamic Jihad, some of the military leaders. You cannot blame Lapid anymore for being soft on the Arab side.
In a broader context, Harel did mention the unending procession of young Palestinian bodies in the West Bank. Many of them “innocent.”
Almost every week you have somewhere between three to five young people dying on the Palestinian side. Some of them armed militants, some rock throwers, some of them innocents who were somehow at the wrong place at the wrong time, but there are many, many casualties on the Palestinian side, and this is getting to be a bigger issue. Not only the public, but the media fails to concentrate on this.
Harel specifically mentioned the attack in Nablus, in which three Palestinians were killed. He said that the front pages of the Israeli tabloids focused not on the deaths of Palestinians but the death of an Israeli attack dog called Zili. “This is the way things are going right now, this is the discussion– not about the conditions of the occupation… mostly about how brave Zili the dog was. Lapid himself actually mentioned him in a statement after the incident. This is the kind of discussion we’re having,” Harel said.
Though Harel contributed to the same erasure of Palestinian humanity in his briefing to Americans.
“an image that would actually show that we had beaten the other side”
BEATEN the other side? Israeli Jews have the other side completely at their mercy. This is genuine paranoia.
And Netanyahu needing a photo op? Shocking, but not, in the end, surprising.
A “pinpoint attack” on a graveyard? Whom were they pinpointing?
Likely the entire discussion would change and the table can be turned by Palestinian citizens engaging politically with a determined, disciplined campaign for a secular state with no discriminatory laws.