[R-G] Our myopic view of Gaza conflict

[Anthony Fenton]

Our myopic view of Gaza conflict
Haroon Siddiqui

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/563405

I was holidaying in India when the Israeli onslaught on Gaza began  
Dec. 27.

There were banner headlines coupled with editorial outrage in the Urdu  
media, the language of Muslims, and dispassionate but balanced  
coverage in the English media and the regional language newspapers.

Across the Arab Middle East, Al-Jazeera and others were providing one- 
sided, wall-to-wall coverage of death and destruction in Gaza.

Travelling through Europe, one could appreciate the powerful reporting  
and commentary, which conveyed the scale of the tragedy, without  
crossing the line into propaganda for either side.

It didn't take long upon landing here to be reminded how much the  
political and media establishment – in the U.S. and, lately, Canada as  
well – are divorced from reality.

The Stephen Harper Conservatives, as well as many editorialists and  
pundits, seem to inhabit a make-believe world into which no  
inconvenient facts are allowed to intrude.

Their mantra is that Israel has a right to defend itself, has to  
protect its citizens from Hamas rockets, and had to retaliate for the  
breaking of the ceasefire by Hamas Dec. 19.

True. But deprived of other truths, this performs the desired magic of  
absolving Israel of any culpability.

According to this view, hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including  
women and children and seniors, being bombed and shelled to death in  
schools – even clearly marked United Nations schools – mosques,  
refugee camps, streets and homes are acceptable collateral damage.

Few tears need be shed, especially since Hamas is to blame, anyway.

There's amnesia about the brutal 40-year-old occupation.

There's nary a mention that in Israeli military operations in 2008,  
420 Palestinians had been killed prior to Dec. 28 vs. five Israelis,  
according to B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights body,

And Israel's crippling economic blockade had prompted the UN special  
rapporteur Richard Falk to say on Dec. 9 that Israel's collective  
punishments amounted to "a crime against humanity," and that the  
International Criminal Court ought to investigate whether Israeli  
leaders and military commanders should be indicted.

He noted that the last time there had been "such a flurry of  
denunciations by normally cautious UN officials" was during the reign  
of the apartheid government in South Africa.

On Nov. 21, the chief of UN Relief and Works Agency, Karen Abu Zayd,  
said supplies had run out. She reported "a chronic anemia problem" and  
"the stunting of children."

All this was long before the latest carnage, which foreign journalists  
have been prevented from witnessing. Dead, as of yesterday, were 650  
Gazans, a fifth of them civilians.

What our political and media establishment are telling us is this:

Israel must not be provoked but the Palestinians can be.

The trauma suffered by Israelis in the border area along Gaza is not  
acceptable. But 60 per cent of 1.5 million Gazans suffering from post- 
traumatic stress disorder is.

Israeli politicians, facing an election Feb. 10, have to be sensitive  
to electoral concerns, but Palestinians elected in a fair election  
Jan. 2006 must be isolated and jailed.

There's an equivalency between Hamas's handmade, ill-targeted rockets  
and the lethal hi-tech Israeli arsenal, some of it of American origin.

Palestinians must pay heed to Israeli/American/Canadian demands but  
Israel may ignore calls for a ceasefire by the UN, the European Union  
and even allies France, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Israeli lives matter, Arab ones don't. In fact, it is worth prolonging  
the bloodshed in Gaza, as in Lebanon in 2006, to allow Israel time to  
achieve one or two more of its objectives. Arab blood is cheap.

"Unfortunately, all this plays into the hands of those Palestinians  
and Arabs, and more generally, Muslims, who say, `the West is against  
us because of who we are and is engaged in a civilizational war  
against us,'" says Jim Reilly, professor of Near Eastern Studies at  
the University of Toronto.

"If we include Iraq and Afghanistan, it reinforces the message of Al  
Qaeda and co-thinkers that they are waging war against a predatory and  
rapacious enemy.

"All this makes it that much harder for us to argue back against the  
militants and the zealots."

Haroon Siddiqui's column appears Thursday and Sunday.

hsiddiq at thestar.ca