Bibi says it's 'hasta la vista' time for Hamas
One thing about Benjamin Netanyahu: His utter disregard for diplomatic niceties achieves (for him) a kind of refreshing honesty.
Today he cut through all the Grey Poupon and declared what just about anyone breathing and sentient already has realized: Israel's hideous assault on Gaza is designed to remove Hamas from power before a questionable U.S. President takes office next month.
In an interview carried by Reuters there's this telling exchange:
Q. Is Israel seeking the removal of the Hamas government in Gaza ... in this operation. Or is this something it is going to pursue further along the line?"
A. "I think ultimately we need to do this. Whether it can be done right now is something I don't think we should discuss here. But it should be discussed because ultimately, if we don't do it, then Hamas will rearm itself ... Hamas openly declared its goal to eradicate the state of Israel from the face of the earth."
Netanyahu is the leader of Likud and (for now) the overall jefe of Israel's conservative factions, and some are betting he'll be the next Prime Minister after Ehud Olmert serves his purpose in this latest savagery and quits the scene early next year. Nevertheless, he's signed on for PR work to help sell Israel's aggression to the rest of the world, as he did two years ago in the Lebanese invasion. The Jerusalem Post website I've linked here cites an American public relations firm, Double Diamond, so maybe they're handling the lion's share of euphemism here in the U.S:
"Netanyahu's associates said there was no conflict of interest, because he was representing the country and not the government. They said he would continue to criticize the government's policies of inaction in the Gaza Strip that were in force until Saturday."
That's one flack job I don't envy; Israel's public profile hasn't been so high since it took out its frustration over battlefield losses in the summer of 2006 on the civilians of Lebanon, lashing out with airstrikes that demolished the country's infrastructure and even targeted - for the first time - Christian neighborhoods. Past and present alliances, I suppose, are disposable if the intention is to teach a lesson to your underling neighbors.
Speaking of suffering helots, the Israeli offensive at least strips away the Potemkin Village conceit that Gaza in no worse off in liveablity standards than, say, South Tucson. Those fanatically contested reports decrying conditions in that unfortunate strip of real estate on Israel's seaward rump included a description by Tony Blair's sister-in-law that the Palestinean "nation" was in the "largest internment camp in history".
Nevertheless, what with the lickspittle overcrafting of American news reports, jumping through every flaming hoop to mitigate reports of dead children and bomb-cratered atrocity with citations of Hamas' infamy and those insidious homemade rockets, it's refreshing to hear an authority like Netanyahu getting to the nut and just saying it: Hamas may be the democratically elected party of the Palestineans and democracy may be government by free elections by the people, but here in the Levant, we'll decide who leads any damn country.
For the Palestineans in Gaza, is it any worse? Now that the kid gloves are off? Have the gloves ever, indeed, been on? Here's an excerpt from John Pilger last year:
The remarkable Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has described the starvation sweeping Gaza's more than a million and a quarter inhabitants and the "thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment . . . The shadows of human beings roam the ruins . . . They only know the [Israeli army] will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions".
Whenever I have been in Gaza, I have been consumed by this melancholia, as if I were a trespasser in a secret place of mourning. Skeins of smoke from wood fires hang over the same Mediterranean Sea that free peoples know, but not here. Along beaches that tourists would regard as picturesque trudge the incarcerated of Gaza; lines of sepia figures become silhouettes, marching at the water's edge, through lapping sewage. The water and power are cut off, yet again, when the generators are bombed, yet again. Iconic murals on walls pockmarked by bullets commemorate the dead, such as the family of 18 men, women and children who "clashed" with a 500lb American/Israeli bomb, dropped on their block of flats as they slept. Presumably, they were militants.
This is hell. What can you do about a democratically elected government?
First, you attack the process, I guess. The voting was rigged or unfair or whatever.
If Utah passes legislation making it mandatory that all state elected officials be Morman, we can do something about it from a judicial and constitutional perspective.
But an independent state? Zbigniew Brzezinski was on this morning castigating Joe, which is always a joy to behold. But he insists that Clinton actually had an agreement until Israel voted in a new administration that voided the agreement.
His point was that a real push by the US under Obama might yield some fruit. He got into some real issues here with Israel's reaction which he felt was over reaction on its part. Killing four hundred people in retaliation for the destruction of buildings.
Anyway. This is hell on earth.
December 30, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. It's absolute hell. And with our extravagant, annually replenished aid package to Israel, we, as Americans, are complicit in it. At the very least, Obama, in his reticence, has avoided the usual, one-sided kiss-up that has so removed us from any conceivable role as even-handed peacemaker.
December 30, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing blog. Thank you for putting this together in a way I have not really heard before.
If Obama doesn't play hardball with Israel, first in the form of rescinding all military aid and then aggressive diplomatic pressure leading to immediate relief for the Palestinians, I will certainly be on these pages demanding to know why.
We don't have much power in this country, but at least the Internet gives us a voice and our vote gives us a bit of leverage should we choose to apply it. It's long past time we forced this country to live up to its marketing.
December 30, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink