Photo: A Palestinian boy is reflected in a pool of water stained with blood after an Israeli shelling at Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip November 8, 2006. Israeli shelling killed 18 civilians, including women and children, on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said, in one of Israel's deadliest strikes in the coastal territory in months. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)Lawrence of Cyberia on Israel's Shelling of Beit Hanun
"A lot of words will be written and spoken about the IDF's shelling of a residential area of Beit Hanun early this morning, which killed at least 18 Palestinians as they slept. As I live in the U.S., most of the words I read and hear about it will blame the Palestinians for their own deaths, insisting that if only someone hadn't sometime in the past fired some crappy Qassam missile possibly from somewhere in the vicinity of where those dead Palestinians lived, then the IDF would not be attacking Palestinians and everything would be fine.
"This is bullshit. Let us stop pretending that the massive killing of Palestinians in Gaza over the last few months begins and ends with the Qassams, and that if only they would stop firing them, the Palestinians would find a government in Israel willing to sit down and talk peace. This is a lie. It is a story we tell ourselves, to maintain the happy illusion we were raised on, i.e. that poor little Israel is always sincerely seeking peace, but is constantly frustrated by neighbors who don't want it.
"Let's return to the real world via two quotes. One from Israeli journalist Gideon Levy:
What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the
economic siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to Palestinian labourers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda here and around the world. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not behave violently.
"Well, that's an important first step. A recognition that the firing of missiles out of Gaza does not happen in a vacuum, but has a context; and that that context is Israel's determination to unilaterally impose on the Palestinians a "solution" that will retain Israel's domination over them through indirect rather than direct occupation, rather than allow to emerge through negotiation a viable, successful, independent Palestinian state.
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