Foreign Policy In Focus

The Sunday Times of London's controversial Netanyahu cartoon highlighted the difficulty many experience differentiating between a political comment and a religious insult.

Britain’s The Sunday Times featured a controversial cartoon this past Sunday depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a bloody brick wall on the bodies of trapped, screaming Palestinians with the caption: “Israel elections. Will cementing the peace continue?”

The cartoon—drawn by veteran cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, who often utilizes blood in his work—has garnered the attention of Israeli officials and international Jewish groups who have declared the cartoon “sickening,” “anti-Semitic,” and “grotesque.”  

Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub, demanded an apology from the newspaper, stating that “We’re not going to let this stand as it is…We genuinely think that a red line has been crossed and the obligation on the newspaper is to correct that.” Other Israeli officials have also spoken out against the cartoon, such as Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, who wrote, “For me and for other Israelis, this cartoon was reminiscent of the vicious journalism during one of the darkest periods in human history,” and that he was “shocked that such cartoons can be published in such a respectable newspaper in the Great Britain of today.”

Much of the outrage has been in response to the fact that Scarfe’s cartoon was printed on Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day, which coincides with the International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945. Scarfe himself has stated he was unaware of the timing and publicly apologized in a statement on his website:

First of all I am not, and never have been, anti-Semitic. The Sunday Times has given me the freedom of speech over the last 46 years to criticise world leaders for what I see as their wrong-doings. This drawing was a criticism of Netanyahu, and not of the Jewish people: there was no slight whatsoever intended against them. I was, however, stupidly completely unaware that it would be printed on Holocaust Day, and I apologise for the very unfortunate timing.

Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose company owns the Sunday Times, also publicly tweeted an apology, labeling the cartoon “grotesque” and “offensive,” adding that it “has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times.”

Some members of the Jewish community have come to Scarfe’s defense, however, such as Anshel Pfeffer from Haaretz, who listed four reasons why the cartoon “isn’t anti-Semitic in any way: ”first, that it is not directed at Jews; second, that it does not use Holocaust imagery; third, there was no discrimination; and lastly, that “this is not what a blood libel looks like.”

Simon Kelner of The Independent also came to Scarfe’s defense, replying to Murdoch’s tweet:

Of course it's grotesque. Has he never seen a Scarfe cartoon before? But offensive? I can't find any impulse, emotionally or intellectually, that causes me to be offended. Does this make me a bad Jew? Maybe it does, but I do think the world would be a better place if people were able to tell the difference between a political comment and a religious insult.

Yet for all the controversy one cannot help but wonder whose decision it actually was to print Scarfe’s cartoon on such a date, especially since it would seem that such a cartoon would have been much more timely—and a lot less offensive—had it been featured the Sunday before Israel’s elections. 

Leslie Garvey is an intern at Foreign Policy in Focus.

The burden is on those of us who advocate gun control to prove that deterrence doesn't work with firearms.

At the Tablet on December 17, Lial Lebovitz attempts to explain (in a piece titled) Why Israel Has No Newtowns. First, he notes that, in the United States

… astute thinkers tried to look past their indignation and heartbreak in search of sensible policy alternatives. Not surprisingly, they often ended up looking to Israel. … A popular statistic spread like wildfire on Facebook and Twitter: Only 58 Israelis were killed by guns last year, compared with 10,728 Americans. … Assault rifles are banned, registration is necessary, and a whole system of checks and requirements is in place to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.

But, Lebovitz points out that, while assault rifles are banned in Israel, it's surprisingly easy to obtain a handgun. (In particular, note what I've italicized.) 

Security guards, obviously, are permitted their guns, but so are men and women who work in the diamond industry, or who handle valuable goods or large sums of cash. Anyone who lives or works in an “entitled residency”—code for a high-risk area, meaning the settlements—is permitted a weapon, no questions asked. Retired army officers can easily obtain a license, as can anyone who has inherited a gun from a friend or a relative. [Bad pun alert. -- RW]  The upshot: Anyone can come up with an excuse to legally own a gun.

"How, then," Lebovitz asks, "to explain Israel's relatively low rate of gun-related deaths?" His argument now becomes familiar. He quotes Lior Nedivi, who he describes as an "an independent firearms examiner in Jerusalem and the co-author of a comprehensive report comparing Israel's gun laws and culture to that of the United States."

“An armed society,” Nedivi wrote, quoting the science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, “is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. 

Lebovitz adds:

When everyone has a gun, guns are no longer seen as talismans by weak, frightened, and unstable men seeking a sense of self-validation, but as killing machines that are to be handled with the utmost caution and care.

He fails to explain, though, exactly why said "weak, frightened, and unstable men" no longer turn to guns for "a sense of self-validation." What follows is equally familiar.

… ever more stringent gun control is bad policy: As is the case with drugs, as was the case with liquor during Prohibition, the strict banning of anything does little but push the market underground into the hands of criminals and thugs. Rather than spend fortunes and ruin lives in a futile attempt to eradicate every last trigger in America, we would do well to follow Israel’s example and educate gun owners about their rights and responsibilities, so as to foster a culture of sensible and mindful gun ownership.

It's the old deterrence argument. When applied to nuclear weapons, those of us in the disarmament community know that deterrence is, at best, a short-term solution. In fact, it's the epitome of a fragile peace. But, I'm forced to admit that the implications for an armed civil society are not nearly as dire, since one mistake won't result in the destruction of large portions of the world, as with nuclear weapons. Neither is civil war in the United States, Israel, or Switzerland (another heavily armed society) likely. Thus, it's left to those of us in favor of steeper gun regulation to present arguments and data refuting the belief that gun possession is an effective form of deterrence. 

In the interim, though, it's difficult to disagree with what Jill Lepore wrote in her outstanding April 2012 New Yorker article on the history of gun control in the United States.

When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

Soon after the 2006 war with Lebanon, it became clear that Israel's Achilles heel was the fear that demoralized its population.

On Wednesday November 21, under an Egypt-brokered deal, Palestinians and Israelis agreed to end all hostilities against each other after eight days of relentless Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave. Israel also agreed to open all crossings and facilitate the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip. But it did not accept a proposal to lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Over 160 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed and about 1,200 others were injured in over 1,500 Israeli attacks on Gaza that were carried out during the eight-day period of November 14-21. It is too early to tell whether the ceasefire will hold for very long, and if it does, whether its central provisions will be implemented. 

For those who still remember the Israeli attack on Gaza four years ago and the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the repeated violation of ceasefire agreement by the Israelis, the current ceasefire should hold no hope, especially as we have begun to notice similar patterns of violations taking place again. Looking back  four years, to the end of ‘Cast Lead’ and since then and up to the beginning of last Israeli attack, 271 Palestinians, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, have been assassinated by Israeli air strikes, by drones, by planes, by helicopters and ZERO Israelis killed by Palestinian rockets.

Israel has already used excessive violence to disperse Palestinian civilians who gathered on the Gaza side of the border, with a few straying across into Israel, to celebrate what they thought was their new freedom now to venture close to the border. This so-called ‘no-go-area’ was decreed by Israel after its 2005 ‘disengagement’ had been a killing field where 213, including 17 children and 154 uninvolved, had lost their lives. Only in the last few days, Israeli security forces, after firing warning shots, killed one Palestinian civilian and wounded another 20 others with live ammunition. Despite this note of pessimism there are a number of fundamental differences between the situation in Gaza and Hamas fighters in Gaza in 2012 compared to 2008.

First, the change of dynamics resulting from the Arab Spring and change in Egypt. The two regional countries that the U.S. needs badly to act as interlocutors, and isolate Hamas — Turkey and Egypt — are arguably right now the closest and most important allies of Hamas. Israel is more isolated than Hamas and has fewer friends. Even the British Foreign secretary, who under normal circumstances is only good for rubber stamping whatever Israelis does, this time took a cautionary approach and did not offer any support for a ground invasion.

The fact that Israel cannot count on diplomatic support from U.S.-oriented regimes such as Mubarak of Egypt creates a new dynamic in the Middle East and puts far greater pressure on Israeli leaders to be more realistic in their approach to the peace process. This generates a better environment for a more realistic and pragmatic approach to finding a longer lasting, and more permanent peace in the Middle East.

The second difference in my assessment is Hamas’ acquisition of more sophisticated weapons dealt a serious blow to Israeli morale. These long-range missiles allowed Hezbollah in Lebanon during the 2006 Israeli war not only to secure itself against Israeli aggression, most importantly: it created a more symmetrical confrontation by taking the war into cities in the occupied territories that had been immune from any attack for a long time.

The attack on Tel Aviv soon after the first Israeli attack on Gaza in the latest war, not only was a shock to the political leadership in the Israeli government, it heralded a new chapter in the relation between the freedom fighters in Gaza and the Israeli occupying forces. These weapons turned the table of confrontation with Israel in favor of Gaza and made another Israeli victim feel bold enough, if not fully secure, to confront it with a real sting.

One does not need a complicated analysis to conclude that if the fighters in Gaza have gained access to missiles that can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, then they must have acquired anti-tank weapons similar to those that were used by Hezbollah in 2006 with devastating consequences for the Israeli tank divisions and especially for Markova 4 tanks that the Israelis had invested so much in constructing an image of invincibility around it globally.

It became clear soon after the 2006 war with Lebanon that the Achilles heel of the Israelis was the fear factor that demoralized its population. The fact that, in 2012 as in 2006, it was Israel who proposed the truce, clearly indicate that for the military leaders in Israel, a scared population is not the same as the dead Gazans are for Hamas – scared populations would sap the shaky morale in Israel even further, while for the freedom fighters in Gaza, innocent civilian casualties energize them to go an extra-mile to avenge.

Like the 2006 war, the underdog, Hamas, comes out of this confrontation in much more favorable status than the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv. Despite all the military shields, Hamas was able, even in the last hours of the conflict, to attack Israel. This has certainly enhanced Hamas’s prestige among Palestinians and in the Arab world, and, in a ‘zero sum gain’ relationship, any gain of prestige by Hamas by necessity implies a loss for the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas. It will be more difficult than ever to bolster the Fatah leadership on the West Bank as Hamas grows in stature.

The third outcome of this war is political recognition given to Hamas leadership by a number of Arab leaders. During the attacks several leading foreign ministers from the region visited Gaza and were received by the Hamas governing authorities, thus undermining the Israeli policy of isolating Hamas and excluding it from participation in diplomacy affecting the Palestinian people. As Richard Falk has stated:

. . . throughout this just concluded feverish effort to establish a ceasefire, Hamas was treated as if ‘a political actor’ with sovereign authority to speak on behalf of the people living in Gaza. Such a move represents a potential sea change, depending on whether there is an effort to build on the momentum achieved or a return to the futile and embittering Israeli/U.S. policy of excluding Hamas from diplomatic channels by insisting that no contact with a terrorist organization is permissible or politically acceptable.

The most important outcome of the latest attack has been the strengthening of the argument that the existence of more parity in the region would undermine the hawkish and belligerent Israeli position that so far, with the overt and covert support of the US, has not agreed to implement any treaties agreed upon in the previous negotiations and by implication would lead to a softening of such a position making a long term resolution of this conflict more likely. I hope this realization would lead to less saber rattling about attacking Iran.

Like Hezbollah in 2006, Hamas has punched a big hole in Israel’s overinflated air ego balloon sending the military leaders to the drawing board. This may be an opportune moment for the peace lovers in the region to become more active. They may be able to prevent this carnage from being repeated again. 

Ibrahim Kazerooni, originally from Iraq, is finishing a joint Ph.D. program at the Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies in Denver. More of his work can be found at the Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni Blog.

It's one thing to intercept a Hamas rocket, another to shoot down an inter-continental ballistic missile. 

The success of Israel's Iron Dome defense system, which has intercepted 80 to 90 percent of the rockets launched from Gaza, is viewed by many as a cause for celebration. Worse, it's being used as evidence that missile defense works.

In fact, the odds that missile defense can protect a state from inter-continental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons are slim to nonexistent.

Equally troublesome, it's an ongoing bone of contention between the United States and Russia. The United States seeks to implement defense systems in Europe ostensibly to protect the NATO countries from -- however hypothetical -- a nuclear attack by Iran.

Perhaps partly because of how preposterous the Iran pretext sounds and because it serves the purposes of the Russian defense establishment, Moscow views missile defense in Europe as an even larger affront to the stability of nuclear deterrence than missile defense on American soil. Currently, aside from a radar installation in Turkey, U.S. missile defense in Europe is deployed only on ships in the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, drawing conclusions about missile defense from Iron Dome is like comparing apples and oranges. At Foreign Policy, Yousaf Butt explains.

That this small battlefield system has been so successful against the relatively slow-moving short-range rockets doesn't mean that larger and much more expensive missile defense systems, such as the planned NATO system, will work against longer-range strategic missiles that move ten times as fast.

In other words, Iron Dome is not missile defense, it's rocket defense (which, in fact, is also a subsection of U.S. missile defense).

In contrast to the short-range Hamas rockets, which fly through the atmosphere during their whole trajectory, the longer-range ballistic missiles … spend most of their flight in space. For decades it has been known that trying to intercept a warhead in space is exceedingly difficult because the adversary can use simple, lightweight countermeasures to fool the defensive system [such as] cheap inflatable balloon decoys. 

Furthermore

… an 80 percent-effective tactical missile defense system against conventional battlefield rockets -- such as Iron Dome -- makes a lot of sense. If 10 conventional rockets are headed your way, stopping eight is undeniably a good thing. The possibility of stopping eight of 10 nuclear warheads, however, is less [impressive] since even one nuclear explosion will inflict unacceptable devastation. Just one nuclear-tipped missile penetrating your missile shield is about the equivalent of a million conventional missiles making it through.

Nor should we forget that

Even the largely successful Iron Dome system, while providing a worthy cover has not provided normalcy for Israeli citizens: the terror is still there.

Cross-posted from the Colorado Progressive Jewish News

Whatever It Is Called – Operation Pillar of Clouds, or Perhaps, More Accurately, 'Operation Killing Hope' … It Failed

The end of the latest U.S.-supported Israeli air and sea war against Gaza has triggered a global call for immediate comprehensive peace negotiations that would include an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories seized in 1967, the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem, and security guarantees for Israel within its pre-June 1967 borders. Not exactly a new framework, but one that is viable, that will end – or certainly seriously reduce – the cycle of violence, and that will produce a peace with justice.

There might be a ceasefire, broadly welcomed, but little momentum to follow up on it with a serious peace process yet despite the appeals. In the end, either the Israelis and Palestinians will move towards peace or towards another round of war. There is no in-between. Nor will the window for peace-making be open forever.

A global consensus supporting the above framework is still broadly supported. But given U.S. virtually blind support for Israel since 1967 – but most especially in Israel's three recent wars (2006 Lebanon invasion, 2008 Gaza invasion, 2012 air and naval assault on Gaza),  it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to claim its position as a unbiased broker in such a process. It will take some doing therefore, not only to get Israel to the negotiating table, but to get the United States to play a more constructive role in such a process. Still there is a ray of hope. Isn't it time to draw the logical conclusion: that military solutions have run their course and will, in the future,  fail and that the conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be resolved politically, through a negotiated settlement based on United Nations resolutions?

If not the cycle of violence will continue. Each time it gets more severe, more difficult from spinning out of control as nearly happened this time. That being the case, the logical thing would be for the parties involved to announce the re-establishing of a negotiating process on all the outstanding issues – final status negotiations – and to move consciously and persistently in that direction. Needless to say, this is not the thinking either in Israel, nor from all appearances in Washington D.C. In Israel, more than 70% of those surveyed would have wanted to see the Israeli Defense Force launch a ground invasion of Gaza. In Washington D.C., as in the past and perhaps even more so, there is no political will to press Israel to the negotiating table and keep it there until an agreement is reached. Instead, Israel is re-armed and drawn ever more closely into U.S.-NATO regional strategic war-making plans.

A War With No Winners, Now and in the Future

The NBC online headline reads "After Eight Days of Gaza Violence, Israel Declares 'Mission Accomplished,' Hamas Claims Victory." A bit odd, no? Both sides claim victory? That is not even a half truth. This was, if anything, a war with no winners; given the mismatch in firepower, the fact that the eight-day Israeli air and sea offensive ended in something of a stalemate, and that Israel could not secure a clear-cut military and political victory will be seen as a political victory for Hamas, which it was.

Despite its post-cease fire blustering, Israel got a dose of its own medicine this time, as Palestinian rockets were able to penetrate as far north from Gaza as Tel Aviv and near Jerusalem. The human and property damage Israel suffered, was, compared to the Palestinians, minor (five dead, some property damage), but the psychological shock of Gaza-based missiles landing in major population centers was considerable. It was most probably was a key factor (among many) in Netanyahu not launching a ground war against Gaza. True, Israel's missile defense system did neutralize about a third of incoming missiles, but two-thirds of them landed.

Israel's well-worn tactic of playing 'the victim card' to somehow cover its role as aggressor is losing its potency. Once again Israel's 'precision bombing' was not very precise. The photos of the victims bely Israeli and Obama Administration contentions that Israel was engaged in a 'defensive war'. Images of children being torn to pieces, of three generations of Palestinian families bombed to smithereens, of hospitals targeted as well as foreign media outlets (AP, Al Jazeera) do not correspond to a nation 'defending itself' from 'outside aggression. Just the opposite.

The pictures of the human suffering its residents endured, downplayed by the U.S. media but readily available all over the worldwide web, are heartbreaking. A day after it was agreed upon, the ceasefire appears to be holding. Gaza is smoldering but its residents unbowed. Hamas was not weakened by this Israeli attack; rather its prestige has soared, not only among Palestinians but globally. Still, for the second time in four years, Gazans paid a heavy, punishing price.

An incomplete damage report, collected from various sources, just before the ceasefire went into effect, reveals the following:

• At least 145 Palestinians have been killed in IOF attacks on the Gaza Strip. Of those, 29 were children and 12 women. More than 1100 people were wounded, including 326 children and 162 women. At least 865 houses have also been damaged or destroyed, including 92 completely. Of those 92 houses, 44 were directly attacked; including 33 deliberately targeted by direct Israeli attacks using the roof-knocking tactic. Expect all of these statistics to spike somewhat upwards.

• Another 179 houses sustained serious damages. Threats to cut off electrical and water sources did not materialize, but the infrastructure of both suffered once again.

• At this writing, Israeli attacks caused damages to 6 health centers, 30 schools, 2 universities, 15 NGO offices, 27 mosques, 14 media offices, 11 industrial plants, 81 commercial stores, 1 UNRWA food distribution Center, 7 ministry offices, 14 police/security stations, 5 banks, 30 vehicles, and 2 youth clubs. Because of the bombing, some 10,000 Gazans were forced to find shelter from the bombing at U.N.- run schools.

Despite the damage Israel inflicted, militarily, the clash, was something akin to a draw. Politically, regardless of the spin, Israel lost. Now, with U.S. aid, it hopes to recoup politically (through pressure on Egypt) what it failed to accomplish through the F-16-delivered (not very) precision missiles. The Israeli military, by many estimates the world's fourth largest, was held at bay by what is little more than a rag-tag militia of Hamas defenders with a few short range and (perhaps) anti-tank missiles.

Netanyahu Miscalculated

Netanyahu, itching to launch a major ground assault to punish the Gazans yet again, was forced to put the brakes on such an operation, which entailed too many risks for Israel, the United States, and, strange as it might appear, even a Muslim-brotherhood led Egypt. The ostensible goal of the Israeli assault was to knock out Hamas' missile capacity, but other factors were at play. Yes, as has been well publicized, on some level Netanyahu hoped to isolate and marginalize his opponents vying for political power in the upcoming Israeli elections.

He also calculated that regardless of how the military operations played out, that it would complicate life for Barack Obama whose re-election Netanyahu shamelessly lobbied against. At the same time, the Israeli prime minister hoped to embarrass and humiliate the Egyptian government, by forcing it to choose between its strategic alliance with the U.S. and the will of the Egyptian people to stand up to Israel.

But the central political goal of this campaign was to kill hope, Palestinian hope that in this, Obama's second term, there might be a possibility of diplomatic progress towards achieving a political settlement that would lead to a viable West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Through a full scale assault – air, sea and with a follow-up ground offensive, Israel intended to strike a crushing blow to the Palestinians once again, to complicate any effort at Palestinian unity, to continue building settlements in West Bank and ultimately to 'send a message' that Israel is in control and that there will be no Palestinian state. The occupation would continue as it has since 1967.

A combination of world public opinion fast turning against both Israel and the United States, U.S. pressure on Netanyahu (with its promises of lucrative consolation prize payoffs to Netanyahu), Hamas' dogged resistance, and Israeli worries that Hamas possibly had anti-tank missiles all merged to end the Israel air and sea offensive and Hamas' missile response. The Israeli ground offensive never happened.

The Shadow of the 2006 Israeli Military Incursion Into Lebanon Hangs Over Gaza

In many ways how this conflict was fought – and ended – was in large measure dictated by the 2006 Israeli venture into the Lebanon which was, by any objective standard, not just a political but also a military failure in what has been referred to as 'asymmetrical' warfare. The limits of Israeli military might were exposed. It might be able to fight a conventional war against another regional power, but is far less prepared to fight the kind of guerilla warfare of the kind that Hezbollah and now Hamas practice. Israel suffered one of its greatest military losses then, its ground offensive stalled as Hezbollah anti-tank missiles disabled several score of Israeli tanks leading the charge into southern Lebanon.

Forced to withdraw its ground troops, Israel responded with a punishing – but largely ineffective – massive air offensive. Hezbollah's answer was a massive missile attack on northern Israel which forced more than 100,000 Israelis to abandon their homes and seek temporary shelter elsewhere. As will be the case with Hamas today, in 2006 Hezbollah emerged from that war a much stronger force than it had been, not just in Lebanon, but throughout the region.

While in 2008, Israel was able to launch a punishing military offensive against Gaza, this time one might say that it 'won' militarily but actually lost politically. That military offensive was little more than an air, sea and ground-based massacre. To call it a war is to mis-characterize what was little more than unprovoked aggression. It did not achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas, which was able to rebuild its structures, cadres and military potential rather quickly. Although Israelis and their U.S. supporters howled against the charges of 'war crimes', the moral stain remained. Israel's prestige in the world – and among American Jewry somewhat – plummeted.

With this current attack on Gaza, Israel's international standing, despite U.S. support, will continue to tank.

This is the third time in a mere six years that Israel has come out on the short end politically from wars that it has launched. All three times, Israeli military operations have been launched with full support from Washington – be it the Bush or Obama Administrations – and with an ample supply of U.S. made sophisticated weaponry. All three times the thin pretext of 'Israel's right to self-defense' was invoked for what were rather wars of aggression launched on the thinnest of pretexts.

While here in the United States, with the public bombarded with pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian media spin, the Israeli offensive enjoyed popular support. This was not so in the rest of the world where images of the wanton destruction and killing of Palestinians began to inflame anti-Israeli sentiment everywhere. Outside of the U.S. the argument that 'Israel has the right to defend itself' – while somehow the Palestinians don't have that right – rings surprisingly hollow.

The Forgotten Occupation

For all practical purposes, given the unbalance of power and the oft forgotten fact that Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are territories illegally occupied by Israel, seized by force in 1967, what took place in Gaza and Israel was not a war. It was rather an attempt by a colonial occupying power, Israel, to yet again strengthen its hold on a colonized – and brutalized – people. While much of the world yearns to see the cycle of violence on both sides end, once one leaves the borders of the continental United States, there are very few voices who would deny the Palestinians the right to defend themselves, as they did this last week in Gaza.

After the 2006 and 2008 Israeli military adventures, the U.S. Congress, speedily and amply provided replacement weaponry throwing in hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Tel Aviv to boot, this above and beyond the annual $3 billion gift. The just-ending Israel attack on Gaza will follow suit. All indications are that Hillary Clinton, with perhaps her 2016 presidential on the line, did not so much 'negotiate' a cease fire as she did pay for it, doling out tens if not hundreds of billions to both Israel and Egypt.

Reports have already surfaced that American financial largess – once again – coaxed Israel to accept a ceasefire and Egypt to press Hamas to do likewise. This is the modern American form of diplomacy – buying its way to unstable peace – otherwise known as bribery – whether it is paying Poland $8 billion to join NATO, or 'brokering' a cease fire over Gaza. Months before the fighting broke out the United States gave Israel two gifts, one of $270 million and another of $70 million to upgrade its early warning missile defense system. Promises of additional financial aid to Israel – just the opposite message needed to bring Israel to the negotiating table – are already in the offing. Likewise tremendous pressure combined with financial incentives were put upon Egypt to use its influence on Hamas to accept the cease fire.

How to Change Course.

On a radio program where I participated a few days ago (Hemispheres – KGNU-Boulder), one of the participants spoke about how the Middle East has been marred with religious conflict for the past 5,000 years. This is utter nonsense, a way simply to avoid putting forth concrete suggestions for ending the crisis by taking the fatalistic and entirely inaccurate position that the conflict is essentially unsolvable.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a modern political conflict with its roots in the late 19th century; it is primarily not even a religious but a national and colonial conflict.

In his column today, University of Michigan prof Juan Cole offers what he calls '10 Steps that are necessary to lasting Israeli-Gaza Peace'. They include a call for lifting the Israeli blockade of Gaza which continues to choke the Palestinians there, the granting of Palestinians citizenship and statehood, encouraging Egypt to help with Palestinian rapproachment between Hamas and Fateh, encouraging Egypt to press Hamas to renounce terror as a tool for national struggle, renewed Palestinian elections to create a government of national unity, a moratorium on Israeli West Bank settlement building (the main stumbling block to any successful negotiation), the end of Israeli expropriation of property in East Jerusalem and Israel recognizing the right of Palestinians to have their capital in East Jerusalem, Israel not insisting on recognition by its negotiating partners as a pre-condition for starting talks, an Israeli-Palestinian return to the bargaining table for final status talks, and finally that the United States must stop blocking UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel.

Taken together if implemented, would mark a shift in gears, from war-making to peace-making. It would be a shame, that after this hard won cease fire, if the situation again deteriorated into another war, which could – as this one nearly did – draw in the whole region, if not the world. With such high stakes, peace really is the only option.