Without hope in Gaza
Updated on 05 January 2009
War between Israelis and Palestinians provokes despair like nothing else, writes Lindsey Hilsum.
The poet James Fenton wrote that in the Middle East "each man wears his suffering like a skin." In the victimhood stakes, the Palestinians come out on top by force of numbers - in this last week, more than 400 people in Gaza died, compared to four in Israel.
To talk of human anguish in such a way invites accusations of cynicism, but I would say that the leaders of Hamas and Israel beat me hands down in the cynicism stakes.
The most breathtaking version of reality I have heard so far was Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's statement in Paris last week. 'There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza,' she said.
Hamas knows firing rockets into Israel will provoke armed attacks on the Palestinians, but it judges - correctly - that the people of Gaza will not blame their own leaders but the Israelis who have isolated Gaza, leaving them impoverished and desperate.
The enclave has been under seige for 18 months now, resulting in 80 per cent unemployment, a collapse of the economy and a deepening of the hatred of Israel. The more the people suffer, it seems, the stronger Hamas becomes.
Israeli leaders have coordinated their messages more carefully this time, but I hear words I heard in the Lebanon war, the second intifada and all the conflicts Israel has been embroiled in over the years.
"Any country would respond like this," they say when asked if there isn't a better way of dealing with the rockets Hamas fires into southern Israel. "We share the same values as you. We try to avoid civilian casualties unlike Hamas which targets Israeli civilians."
The most breathtaking version of reality I have heard so far was Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's statement in Paris last week. "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza,' she said.
We know, because we have been here before, that in the end some appalling blunder such as the bombing of a neonatal ward, will in all likelihood persuade the Americans that this had better stop.
The Israeli columnist Doron Rosenblum, writing in Haaretz, exposes such language by listing the cliches and half truths the Israeli government favours -
"It is amongst the most justified of Israel's wars; it's a war we did not want but in which we had no choice; it's not going to be a walk in the park, and one shouldn't hold a stopwatch to it; the window of opportunity is closing; the airforce has made its usual precision strikes; the enemy was dealt a heavy blow and was in a state of shock for at least the first few hours..."
And he continues -
"This is essentially an evolving operation; we don't want to reach a ceasefire from a position of weakenss, the home front must display stamina; we won't stop until all the operation's objectives are achieved; we have no interest in staying there; it will take as long as it takes; it won't be short and it won't be easy; we regret the mishap in which the neonatal ward was bombed, because of which, as usual, the operation was halted just as it was really getting rolling...."
We know, because we have been here before, that in the end some appalling blunder such as the bombing of a neonatal ward, will in all likelihood persuade the Americans that this had better stop. So they will tell the Israelis that a deal must be done. Arab states will twist the wrists of Hamas.
Then the rocketing of southern Israel may cease for at least a while, some supplies may be allowed into Gaza, and a new security arrangement may be negotiated which will work until it doesn't, along with a ceasefire which will hold until it's broken.
I think of Ezra Pound's poem These Fought In Any Case, where he writes of a war characterised by "old lies and new infamy/usury age-old and age-thick/and liars in public places."
