I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)

As the title shows this is the seventh part (actually the 8^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)" and "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)."

As the reader is well aware by now, I am very critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. However, I do want to give some space toward the opposite viewpoint, though, obviously, not equal space. My problem with the arguments defending Israeli policy is that the bulk of those come from the Right Wing media, and I call attention to those who consider themselves liberals, or progressives, which is the more popular term these days, that they frequently circulate articles from sources that they would never rely on for any other purpose.

However, there is one voice that is unquestionably progressive and yet a staunch defender of Israeli policies and that is Alan Dershowitz. Wikipedia describes him as “A political liberal."

In his article, which appeared in the Jerusalem Post dated July 7, 2014 entitled The current conflict between Israel and Hamas shatters myths (Those who want to read the article in full can find it here.), he makes a number of arguments or what he calls myths.

Myth 1: The primary cause of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is the occupation of the West Bank and Israel’s settlement policy.

He then goes on to rebut this hypothesis. This, it seems to me is setting up a straw man for I am not aware that this has been put forth as the casus belli for the recent conflict in Gaza. Instead, as I have pointed out, the cause for the rocket attacks form Gaza were triggered by Israel’s rounding up and imprisoning without trial 500 members of Hamas in response to the murder of three teenage Israelis by members of Hamas, without the approval, or even knowledge, of the Hamas leadership. (Emphasis added.)

He argues that the attacks from Gaza on Israel:

...are incited by the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Syria and others opposed to the very concept of the nationstate for the Jewish people. The best proof of this reality is that these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza and uprooted all the civilian settlements from that area. Israel left behind agricultural hothouses and other equipment that the residents of Gaza could have used to build a decent society.

This is a damming charge. For it puts forth that Gaza had been given its full freedom to govern itself and to build a prosperous economy and it rewards Israel with attacks upon it. What are the facts?

According to the Washington Post:  

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the withdrawal was to increase security of residents of Israel, relieve pressure on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and reduce friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, claims that the withdrawal is the result of violent Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. (Emphasis added)

But what about Dershowitz’s charge?:

… that these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza…(and) left behind agricultural hothouses and other equipment that the residents of Gaza could have used to build a decent society.

Here we must look to Peter Beinart, another Jewish liberal. In his article Gaza myths and Facts (I urge you to read the article in full) he writes:

If you’ve been anywhere near the American Jewish community over the past few weeks, you’ve heard the following morality tale: Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, hoping the newly independent country would become the Singapore of the Middle East. Instead, Hamas seized power, ransacked greenhouses, threw its opponents off rooftops and began launching thousands of rockets at Israel.

… But at no point did Gaza become its own country. Had Gaza become its own country, it would have gained control over its borders. It never did. As the Israeli human rights group Gisha has detailed, even before the election of Hamas, Israel controlled whether Gazans could enter or exit the Strip (In conjunction with Egypt, which controlled the Rafah checkpoint in Gaza's south). Israel controlled the population registry through which Gazans were issued identification cards. Upon evacuating its settlers and soldiers from Gaza, Israel even created a security perimeter inside the Strip from which Gazans were barred from entry. (Unfortunately for Gazans, this perimeter included some of the Strip’s best farmland). (Emphasis added.)

He adds: 

Pro-Israel” commentators claim Israel had legitimate security reasons for all this. But that concedes the point. A necessary occupation is still an occupation. That’s why it’s silly to analogize Hamas’ rockets—repugnant as they are—to Mexico or Canada attacking the United States. The United States is not occupying Mexico or Canada. Israel — according to the United States government has been occupying Gaza without interruption since 1967.

He goes on to point out: 

To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.

Now when we look to Dershowitz’s allegations such as: 

…these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza…

Beinart corrects the record by pointing out:

…militants in Gaza didn’t start launching rockets at Israel after the settlers left. They began a half-decade earlier, at the start of the second intifada. The Gaza disengagement did not stop this rocket fire. But it did not cause it either.

Returning to Dershowitz’s allegations: 

Moreover, there was no siege of Gaza at that time. Gaza was free to become a Singapore on the Mediterranean. Instead, Hamas engaged in a coup d’état, murdering many members of the PA, seizing control of all of Gaza, and turning it into a militant theocracy. It used the material left behind by the Israelis not to feed its citizens but to build rockets with which to attack Israeli civilians. It was only after these rocket attacks that Israel began a siege of Gaza designed to prevent the importation of rockets and material used to build terrorist kidnap tunnels. 

I have already addressed the claim that there was no siege of Gaza at the time above. There was! As to the claim that “Hamas engaged in a coup d’état” Beinart points out: 

But Hamas didn’t seize power. It won an election. In January 2006, four months after the last settlers left, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem chose representatives to the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. (The previous year, they had separately elected Abbas to be the Palestinian Authority’s President). Hamas won a plurality of the vote - forty-five percent - but because of the PA’s voting system, and Fatah’s idiotic decision to run more than one candidate in several districts, Hamas garnered 58 percent of the seats in parliament.

Beinart goes on to say:

So yes, members of Hamas did throw their Fatah opponents off rooftops. Some of that may have been payback because Dahlan was widely believed to have overseen the torture of Hamas members in the 1990s. Regardless, in winning the battle for Gaza, Hamas—which had already shed much Israeli blood - shed Palestinian blood too. But to suggest that Hamas “seized power” - as American Jewish leaders often do - ignores the fact that Hamas’ brutal takeover occurred in response to an attempted Fatah coup backed by the United States and Israel. In the words of David Wurmser, who resigned as Dick Cheney’s Middle East advisor a month after Hamas’ takeover, “what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen.”

As for the greenhouses Beinart writes:

Israel responded to Hamas’ election victory by further restricting access in and out of Gaza. As it happens, these restrictions played a key role in explaining why Gaza’s greenhouses did not help it become Singapore. American Jewish leaders usually tell the story this way: When the settlers left, Israel handed over their greenhouses to the Palestinians, hoping they would use them to create jobs. Instead, Palestinians tore them down in an anti-Jewish rage.

But one person who does not endorse that narrative is the prime mover behind the greenhouse deal, Australian-Jewish businessman James Wolfensohn, who served as the Quartet’s Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. In his memoir, Wolfensohn notes that “some damage was done to the greenhouses [as the result of post-disengagement looting] but they came through essentially intact” and were subsequently guarded by Palestinian Authority police. What really doomed the greenhouse initiative, Wolfensohn argues, were Israeli restrictions on Gazan exports. “In early December [2005], he writes, “the much-awaited first harvest of quality cash crops—strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and flowers—began. These crops were intended for export via Israel for Europe. But their success relied upon the Karni crossing [between Gaza and Israel], which, beginning in mid-January 2006, was closed more than not. The Palestine Economic Development Corporation, which was managing the greenhouses taken over from the settlers, said that it was experiencing losses in excess of $120,000 per day…It was excruciating.

Facts, facts, facts;. They do get in the way of our pre-conceptions. But if we are to objectively analyze a problem, a conflict, or find a solution, we must start with the facts, and Beinart sets them forth without distortion and without bias.

I am only excerpting Beinart’s analysis here, but those who really want to see what the facts are should read both Dershowitz’s article and Beinart’s in full.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any until this series is complete.