Te gast: Michael Warschawski uit Israel.

The following article was written 30 July at 6.00 a.m., an hour before the announcement of the tragic news of the Qana massacre on Israeli radio. Unfortunately, the massacre was already visible in the content of my writing even before hearing the terrible news:

“In these wars, lives of civilians are not only of very limited value, like in any other war, but considered as a legitimate target, guilty of supporting terrorism, actively or passively, a terrorism which is, in fact, part of their very culture. In ten years, we witnessed a gradual evolution of the dominant discourse: from terrorist groups, to terrorist states, to terrorist peoples…”

Nothing is missing from the original text except a deep feeling of failure, an immense rage and a renewed commitment to take to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to denounce Israeli barbarism, from within the belly of the beast.

The future of Israel at stake

by Michael Warschawski

“We must reduce to dust the villages of the south. . . I don’t understand why there is still electricity there. . .” (Ha’aretz, 28 July)

With these words, Israeli Minister of Justice and former Labor Party leader, Haim Ramon, summarized his recommendations for the continuation of the military offensive in Lebanon, following the failure of the invasion of Bint Jbeil. For the army high command, supported in the Cabinet by Labor Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, the solution would be to occupy part of South Lebanon after destroying all of its villages. The local population would be warned to leave prior to the destruction of the villages through the cellular transmittal of several dozens of text messages, and those who decided to stay, or simply didn’t receive the humanitarian warning call, would be assumed terrorists.

Horrible? Indeed, but not unexpected. The Israeli war in Lebanon is the archetype of 21st Century warfare which aims to re-colonize the world and subjugate the peoples of the earth to the Empire. In these wars, lives of civilians are not only of very limited value, as in any other war, but they are also considered legitimate targets, guilty of supporting terrorism, actively or passively. Terrorism is considered inherent in their very culture.

In the past ten years, we have witnessed a gradual evolution of the dominant discourse from terrorist groups to terrorist states to terrorist peoples. The ultimate logic of the global war is the full ethnization of conflict, in which one is not fighting against a policy, a government or specific targets, but rather against a perceived threat to a given community. Fear is the starting point of the new era, and hatred is its finality. It is because of this fear that the neo-cons of the US administration are speaking of an unending war.

Using the pretext of the kidnapping of two prisoners of war, the Israeli government has agreed to open a new front in the unending preemptive global war of re-colonization. Israel is ready to send in its soldiers to open the way for the “new democracy in the Middle East”, and to sacrifice its own population as collateral victims in this new kind of ethnic war.

This willingness is clearly expressed in an expensive advertisement published by Israeli neo-cons on the front page of (Ha’aretz, 30 July):

Israel is at the forefront of a war against the world of Jihad. We have two options: either to strengthen the fanatics, through withdrawal and separation, through unilateral retreat which will make Israel the scene of the main struggle between fanatical Islam and the enlightened world, or to strengthen the moderates [. . .]. and to transform Israel into the global center of justice and interfaith understanding. In the Middle East there are no short-cuts.” At the end of the advertisement, a short end note: “Remember: deformed philosophical sensitivity toward human lives will make us pay the real price of the lives of many and the blood of our sons.

While more and more voices from the Israeli public are challenging, if not the legitimacy, at least the scope of the present military operation, the US administration is demanding that Israel not surrender to the pressures of those who are working for a ceasefire. Senior political and military analyst Zeev Shiff summarizes the nature of the visit of the US Secretary of State in Jerusalem this past weekend (Ha’aretz, 27 July):

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the leading figure in the strategy aimed at changing the situation in Lebanon, not PM Olmert or Defense Minister Peretz. She is the one who has succeeded until now at standing up to international pressures in favor of a cease fire [. . .] In order to be successful, she needs military cards, which, unfortunately, Israel has not yet been able to deliver. Excluding the punishment by fire of Hezbollah and Lebanon, the military Israeli cards have been limited, until today, to the conquest of two Lebanese villages near the border. If Israel doesn’t improve its military cards in the fighting, we will feel the results in the political solution. . .

Sooner or later, however, the US administration will have to accept a political solution, based more or less on the general outlines from the meeting in Rome. Until the next round of this unending preemptive war, Israel will continue playing its role as the armed vanguard of the so-called civilized world.

What the Israeli public does not comprehend is the dramatic implications of its policy on its very existence as a state within the heart of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Through its unlimited brutality and “clash of the civilizations” rhetoric and strategy, the State of Israel is demonstrating to the peoples of this region that it is, and wants to remain, a foreign and hostile body in the Middle East – no more than an armed extension of the United States’ anti-Muslim crusade of the 21st Century. Everyone knows what became of the Crusaders, ten centuries ago.

The hatred generated by the bombardment of Beirut, the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, the hundreds of civilian deaths, the hundreds of thousands refugees and the strategy of burned land in the south, is immense and runs throughout the whole Muslim world. It could rapidly contaminate the Muslim communities even in the Northern countries. Moreover, in contrast to apparently similar previous crises such as the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, this hatred is grounded in discourse warning of the global “clash of the civilizations” and the ethnization of conflict, making it extremely difficult to eradicate once the smoke of the battle has cleared and the dead have all been buried.

Olmert, Peretz and Halutz are the most dangerous and irresponsible leaders Israel has ever had, playing with a fire which may incinerate our national existence in the Middle East. On the weak shoulders of the small Israeli anti-war movement stand not only the fate of the present Israeli citizenry and the moral decency of our society, but also the very future of our children in this region of the Earth.

“We refuse to be enemies!” proclaims one of the slogans at our demonstrations. Never before has such a slogan been so important, so urgent, so essential.

30 July 2006