Erring on the side of recklessness

The consequences of Israel's military adventure in Gaza - Operation Cast Lead - have yet to be determined but even just one week after the ceasefire last Sunday there are a few conclusions which may be drawn. And what could be more conclusive than the violent expiration, the snuffing out, of previously living, breathing, thinking human beings? Looking at things strictly from the perspective of people killed, one is struck by the disproportionality between the two sides. According to the BBC, 100 times as many Palestinians died as Israelis in the recent conflict in Gaza, 1300 Gazans to the Israelis' 13. Were these 1300 terrorists manning Gaza's rocket launchers? It turns out that no, indeed, at least as many civilians were killed, including more than 400 children. Apparently, engineering genius cannot prevent super-precise missiles from mistakenly veering into the ruddy cheeks of Palestinian tots. Kablooey! Take that terrorists.

Several groups say that the slaughter of innocents was, of course, directly the fault of scrupleless Hamas militants who regularly insinuated themselves amongst civilians in the hopes of deterring Israeli attacks. An organization as self-serving and inept as Hamas will no doubt continue this practice knowing now that it really makes not the slightest difference whether they're surrounded by children or not, the smart bombs will seek them out where ever they are. The irritating thing about the claim that most if not all civilian casualties were the unfortunate result of Hamas tactics, is that there is virtually no one able to confirm this. Media were excluded from entering the gated shanty town at the Israelis' discretion, and all we have to go on are IDF reports of what they did. "A school was bombed to the ground? That's because terrorists were observed shooting from its roof, take our word for it." Does anyone need to go over the conflict of interest at play in an army publicizing its own activities?

I don't believe that the IDF deliberately targeted civilians, but their predictable excuse-making hardly does justice to the seemingly haphazard destruction of so much of Gaza. Missile installations and the infamous underground tunnel system were the stated military targets, yet numerous reports are now showing a destruction more reckless and wanton. Broken pipes spew sewage out into the streets, which are also laden with the debris of countless bombed and bulldozed buildings. Entire neighborhoods have been completely raised. Destruction this thorough not only thwarts Hamas' tunnel smuggling operations, it destroys the activities of the entire Gazan population. "Any kind of private economic activity in Gaza is set back by years or decades," says UN envoy Sir John Holmes.


And it's not just outsiders to this supposed perennial conflict who are offering gloomy prognoses about the long-term consequences of the recent fiasco. Haaretz contributing editor and writer Gideon Levy has called the fighting, "the most brutal war Israel has ever fought... a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight." Levy and the novelist A.B. Yehoshua are presently in a muted war of subtle disagreement in the paper, and have exchanged a series of criticisms and responses. Yehoshua faults Levy for his apparent habit of ignoring or merely giving lip-service to the casualties and suffering of Israelis while saving his empathy for only Palestinian casualties and sufferings. Having read the exchange, I think Yehoshua is making a logical error. He's assuming that by calling attention to the plight of one side, Levy is denigrating the plight of the other. Exhibiting empathy for one side does not mean one does not, let alone cannot, empathize with both. While it is certainly crude to speak solely of numbers, the gross inequality of death and injury surely do warrant greater attention. Of Palestinian suffering Levy says, "it must be written. It must be shouted out. It is done for both our sakes."

Israel's finely tuned sensitivity to international public opinion will mean that hard questions about what happened over the last several weeks will lead to difficult answers. Israeli human rights organizations are pushing for war crime investigations and doing so will likely only deepen the divisions within Israel about the success of the military operations and the policies on the Palestinian territories in general. Amnesty International is also pursuing investigations into the use of phosphorous weapons, which though not banned from military use, are forbidden from use against civilians. Other horrific stories are trickling out, which show an IDF less competent and exacting than their ivory tower generals would like to believe. Perhaps the IDF are like any group of youngish males (sorry, and the odd female thrown in for modernity's sake) who pretend that war is merely tactics and strategies. It's also sweaty palms and racing hearts, confused situations and regrettable decisions.