حماس تعلن اسقاط طائرة حربية إسرائيلية بصاروخ أرض ـ جو

Quote: Middle East: a tragic failure of political imagination Indefinite conflict between Israel and Gaza will exact terrible costs on future generations Share inShare.0 Email Editorial The Observer, Saturday 17 November 2012 19.33 GMT The wars that Israel won in its early years, under threat of extinction and often against formidable alliances, laid the groundwork for the peace deals that would follow, with Egypt and Jordan in particular. Its recent conflicts have been prosecuted with an almost numbing frequency and with far less obvious result: against the second Palestinian intifada; against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and now twice in four years against Hamas in Gaza. Far from acting as the harbinger of a peaceful settlement between Israel and its neighbours, these conflicts represent an overwhelming failure of political imagination. Some have sought explanations for the latest violence in the proximity of Israeli elections as displacement activity for being warned by the US against attacking Iran or in the context of a vote on Palestinian observer status at the UN. The reality is that having done so much to undermine the Oslo peace accords, not least through its policy of continued settlement building and effective annexation (and aided and abetted in this respect by the refusal among militant Palestinian groups to eschew the murderous use of suicide bombers and rocket attacks on Israeli citizens), Israel has found itself with a series of ever more hawkish leaders, leading governments with ever less space to negotiate meaningfully with Palestinians towards a two state solution. The alternative to the long-cherished outcome of an independent Palestinian state neighbouring Israel holds many perils for Israelis. It is the emergence of one state incorporating both entities which, because of demographic trends among both Israel's Arabs and in the Palestinian administered territories, points towards an inevitable Arab majority. The third option – to despair of the possibility of a negotiated settlement and accept the status quo – means accepting the inevitability of a continuing, slow-burning cycle of violence. The reality is that the moribund state of the peace process has inevitably led to an escalation of hostilities between Hamas in Gaza, effectively cut off by Israel's blockade, and Israel. It is hard to argue with the view that Israeli policy towards Gaza is as untenable as it is objectionable, amounting to the collective punishment of the citizens of one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. Palestinian rocket fire out of the Gaza Strip, especially that which targets civilians, is unforgiveable. That the death toll among Israeli civilians has been relatively low has more to do with the limitations of the weaponry and the effectiveness of defences than it does with Hamas's concern for human life. But the support given to Hamas in its deadly endeavours can only be understood within the wider context of the failure of the peace process to take root. Gaza's people are not, as the Israeli narrative has it, captives of Hamas – in fact many chafe against the group. Nor is it a front line base for Iran. Indeed, Hamas's reluctance to back Tehran's client, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, has seen Iran's patronage removed. Hamas is harsh, often authoritarian, with a woeful human rights record when it comes to the pursuit of its enemies, both within Palestinian society and in Israel. Its tactics, too, including its use in the past of suicide bombing, are frequently repugnant. And while its leaders have hinted at long-lasting truces with Israel, the commitment in its founding charter to the end of Israel leaves it beyond the pale. But set against that, the reality, as Israel's generals discovered both in southern Gaza during Operation Cast Lead four years ago, and in southern Lebanon after 2006, is that even with overwhelming military superiority and an unacceptable level of civilian casualties, Israel cannot defeat groups that have deep roots in the population. Short of expelling the residents of these areas, the logic of Israel's policy of deterrence is that it must keep returning to bomb the same areas again and again. The response in the international community has been weak and confused. It appears at times as though many in the west's capitals, so keen to cheer on the Arab Spring's central demand for democratic rights, would now prefer to pretend it had not occurred when those demands for democracy and self-determination are voiced by Palestinians. With no prospect of ultimate military victory for either side, the cycle of violence can only come to an end with a negotiated settlement that requires far more political courage than has been demonstrated by the current Israeli administration, and by Barack Obama, whose lack of engagement, along with the UK and its EU allies, is shameful. For generations, the world has known what is required to achieve a lasting settlement in the region – the creation of two states broadly along the lines of the pre-1967 borders and the guarantee of security for all peoples in the region against military incursion and terrorist attack. What is needed is an immediate reanimation of peace efforts towards this end, which requires both serious pressure on Israel, as well as financial and political mechanisms to persuade Palestinians that peace is a better prospect – and that lethal attacks on Israeli towns must stop. The offer by the Emir of Qatar of large-scale investment in infrastructure and job creation for former prisoners was a step in that direction. A huge burden of responsibility for progress lies with Israel and its political classes, which need to be persuaded that peace is better than violence, that there are great opportunities in co-operation and that indefinite conflict would exact terrible costs on future generations across the region. In the end, that message can only come from Washington. Obama, in his Cairo speech in 2009, promised "a new beginning". It is long overdue for him to deliver on that pledge. He could begin by insisting that Israel pulls back from the brink of a widening war in Gaza. Failure to do that, in the new landscape of the Middle East, may have long-lasting and grim consequences.