The following is a personal reflection, or some ungathered thoughts about what happened exactly a year ago. This is not an analysis or a review of the war in the Gaza strip and southern Israel last winter, cynically called here ‘cast-lead’. Many of those already exist around the web. I just wanted to add a few of my own personal feelings today about that period. So, indulge me, as this will not necessarily be the most profound or philosophical post here on IsraLeft, yet I believe it should be written and read.
Exactly one year ago, on New Year’s Eve 2008, I fled Be’er Sheva, where I was living, with my girlfriend at the time (don’t worry, she’s my wife now). After we heard the fourth missile of that day, we decided that enough was enough. I wrote a quick note on facebook asking if there was anyone driving north – anywhere north – and hopped on the first offer. We celebrated the new year as “refugees”, thankful to be out of our home. Leaving our house was the easiest thing to swallow during that war. Everything else during that month was much more difficult.
That war, much like the Second Lebanon war that preceded it, was a time of a great political crisis for me, and I believe for many other Israeli leftists. Many of them supported the war, actually believing Israel had no choice but to attack Gaza. I opposed it from the very beginning, finding myself in such a minority opinion like I have never experienced before, though I am used to holding minority opinions. I wrote a lot during that time, both in Hebrew, and in English, went to demonstrations, and could not focus on almost anything other than dealing with that pointless war. Most of all I remember the horrible feeling of having almost no one around me who thought like me, or that could share my disappointment and disapproval with what was going on. The war kept going on, with more and more casualties, and with more and more attacks on the few that dared to say something against it, and no end was in sight. One of the hardest things for me was not only the isolation from most Israelis, but from most of the left. I found myself demonstrating and writing against the war and thus being perceived as someone that I am not. I am not an anti-Israeli or an anti-Zionist. I do not support Hamas or want to see Jews die. I am far from all of the above. I opposed the war because I knew then, as I know now, that the war – like nearly any war – was a crime. I knew that civilians were dying for their politicians’ lack of humanity and reason, and that it will achieve nothing, and in fact, will only harm Israel even more. The fact that the Israeli left, most of it, stuttered with it’s opinion of the war was my biggest personal political crisis in years.
Almost all politicians, in the midst of their election campaigns, either supported the war with or without any hesitation, or somewhat supported it. Even worse were those who opposed it quietly and said nothing. To me, it was clear: This war was wrong, and the Israeli left – almost all of it – was not saying it.
Did that mean that “the Israeli left” was not an actual “left”? Did that mean that I was, in-fact, as I was accused, more “left” than “Israeli”? I don’t think so. I do think that the masters of this war did a great job in lying to the public, cynically going to war as part of an election campaign (alas, a failed one), and confusing an already confused public.
What have I learned from that war? I am not sure. I keep wondering what good can come out of a “left” that can only start admitting after a war is over that it might have not been the best move. I have never debated who to vote for as I did after that war, and I have never doubted Israel, let alone the Israeli left, has any future as I did in the aftermath of this war. I left that war confused, scared and disappointed with almost all the people that surrounded me. I often ask myself if it could be that I was wrong about that war, that it was actually a war we had to fight. I am as certain of my answer to that question as I am of the next war that almost undoubtedly our politicians will cause: No. It was avoidable. More than a thousand people died in horrible ways and for no reason, and I doubt we (we – both us and the Palestinians) can fix the wrongs we did last year.
As I do consider myself, and very much so, both an Israeli and a leftist, I am hopelessly looking to offer some hope for a better future. If only I had some certainty I could actually do that.
And with that, happy new year! May this year somehow end without another war, and perhaps, could I even dare? Some hopes for a little peace in this troubled land.
“I opposed the war because I knew then, as I know now, that the war [...] will achieve nothing, and in fact, will only harm Israel even more.”
I agree to many of the things you’ve said, and share your feeling of isolation. But I disagree with the statement that “the war achieved nothing”.
It stopped the rain of rockets. It restored Israel’s deterrence. I think we should be honest and admit to that.
This is not the image of Israel that I would want to have – a country that fights terrorism with massive. Morally it puts us םn the same level as our enemies. But I can’t argue that it worked. Both in Lebanon and in Gaza.
should be: “a country that fights terrorism with massive terrorism”.
stopped the rain of rockets that began when israel attacked gaza, you mean.
the cease fire that israel and hamas reached the summer before was holding and hamas was very much willing to extend it till israel decided to attack.
the goal of the war was never to stop the rain of rockets
So this is an argument about whether Hamas was “very much willing to extend the cease-fire”?
Because I don’t find it that conclusive, and I think it’s fair to accommodate other informed opinions that the security cabinet had at the time.
During most of the cease-fire period, both sides periodically violated it. Israel had intelligence that Hamas was stocking weapons and rockets during that period. The rain of rockets started in November, a month before the cease fire was supposed to end. Then, a day before the end of the “cease-fire” period Hamas was first to officially announce that is not extended further and continued launching rockets.
So if what makes the war unjustifiable for you is that you believe that Hamas wanted peace while others don’t believe so, then we don’t have anything to talk about.
@Joni: I highly doubt the war restored Israel’s deterrence, as I doubt it did in the Lebanese case in 2006. Israel’s deterrence is not, and can not be, merely of the military kind. Hamas knows that Israel would not dare attack Gaza again, due to, mainly, the Goldstone report. Even more than that, Israel did not have to protect even its right to exist for decades as much as it needs to now. The boycott campaigns are stronger than ever, and the hopes for a resolution with the Palestinians are further then they’ve been in a long time.
I really do not see how Israel’s shape is any better just because we proved – big woot – that we have a stronger army than a poor terrorist militia.
@Joni: please don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t claim hamas is a peace seeking entity, nor do I believe it more than I believe Israel is one.
what I said was that the cease fire that was relatively kept (in the boundries that was acceptable on both sides, i.e. a few rockets there and a few Idf mini-skirmishes there) was broken by Israel not Hamas.
in the 4th of november the IDF broke the cease fire ventured into the strip and killed 6 hamas activists, hamas retaliated. the cease fire was semi restored till december when it didn’t continue.
and as I just began to work in a news desk in that period I remember it quite vividly – the both sides made agressive statements and then both sides maintained the need to continue the cease fir – that was friday. next morning the bombings have began.
this all who started argument just comes to say – halting the “rain of rockets” was not the goal of cast lead from the beginning.
Dotan: “I really do not see how Israel’s shape is any better”.
Let’s see: Are there any rockets fired on your home in Beer-Sheva, if you still live there, or do you still consider it unsafe?
“I highly doubt the war restored Israel’s deterrence, as I doubt it did in the Lebanese case in 2006.”
This is what Nasrallah said in an interview after the Lebanon war: “We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.” This is exactly what deterrence is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/opinion/14friedman.html?_r=1
Now sure the war created a new wave of attacks on the legitimacy of Israel (Goldstone report). So while security-wise my opinion is that we are in a better shape, politically we are worse. Is it a net gain or net loss? Hard to tell, those are apples and oranges.
Another point if I may: I would argue that the rockets from Gaza were also an existential threat to Israel. Because these rockets made any agreement with the PA politically impossible, and thus pushed us closer to a one-state solution, which is an existential threat. So we kind of traded one existential threat with another.
@Joni: As far as I can recall, Be’er Sheva was not bombed between the independence in 1948, and until AFTER cast-lead started. So you can’t say that by removing a threat that was only there BECAUSE of the war, the war was successful. If you would have used the Sderot example, I would have understood your claim, and would have still argued that you can not build your entire survival as a state just on military actions, but you used the Be’er Sheva example, which is just unclear to me.
As I said, if Israel’s aim is not only to be the strongest bully in the area, but to also survive in the region, it can not just go around “educating them”, as Friedman called it. It also needs to use diplomacy and negotiations – both are things we not only have not used during that war, but things I doubt we even remember how to do (yes, the Goldstone report as an example again, or the lame excuse for whatever is happening now in terms of Gilad Shalit as another one, let alone the “peace process” itself).
You claim we are in better shape security-wise. I claim that no security can be reached just by bombing your enemies. I guess those are apples and oranges. BUT, if war is, indeed, a political tool – which I think it is – than if Israel is in a worse political shape, according to you, than what good is that “better” security-wise shape do?
And I have no doubt that not reaching an agreement with the PA is an existential threat. I just doubt bombing them like we did was the way to deal with that threat.
Very interesting blog. On the discussion on wether Israel is better off after Cast Lead, I would like to point out that while indeed the missiles have stopped, you now have a situation where 500000+ traumatized under 18s are being forced to live like animals in Gaza. I know that I, for one, if I was 16 and a Gazan would swear undying hatred towards those who forced me to that condition. Up here in Scandinavia we have an expression, “Pissing in your pants to keep from freezing”, wich describes a measure wich works momentarily but afterwards worsens the situation. And I think the trade-off between a few rockets a month (pre-Cast Lead) and the creation of half a million potential suicide-bombers is one such measure.
It seems to me that the current Israeli political elite are unable to look more than 6 months into the future. At some point, the humiliation of your opponents will come back and bite you all. Cast Lead was the moment when Israel lost the moral high ground through excessive force and communal punishment. By maintaining the siege even after the rockets have ended, you are giving the moral high ground to Hamas: While they kidnap soldiers, Israel punish children. This can only lead to a strengthening of the hate in the minds of the young.
@Martin: Hi.
If that’s what you’re saying, I don’t agree with you that Israel should agree to keep having “a few rockets” fall on innocent Israeli citizens, as much as they shouldn’t fall on Gazans. It’s not a good situation, and I think there were other ways, other than the war, to solve it.
As far as our leadership’s inability to plan into the future, and act – let alone morally – but strategically smart, I agree with you.
Hotan Z. H.: On rockets, of course it is not a situation to agree with, though I could quote you some arguments against the concept “innocent Israeli Citizens, post Cast Lead. I am a military historian by hobby, and there is a certyain arithmetic in the pure numbers of conflicts that I think cuts beneath the usual blather of political arguments. And in that arithmetic, especially given the point that Hamas sortta tried to hold a ceasefire, is very brutal from a neutral foreign pov.
Dont know if you have followed the rise of Gen. Petraeus and the idea of financial third-party subsidies. What about letting the chinese have Gaza???
…*Cast Lead* is very…., sorry.
Dotan:
“I claim that no security can be reached just by bombing your enemies. ”
I seriously disagree with that statement. Ask the people in Kiryat Shmone and Sderot how they feel now compared to 4 years ago.
“if war is, indeed, a political tool – which I think it is – than if Israel is in a worse political shape, according to you, than what good is that “better” security-wise shape do?
And I have no doubt that not reaching an agreement with the PA is an existential threat. I just doubt bombing them like we did was the way to deal with that threat.”
Dotan, and Martin: In a climate where Israeli settlements are being bombed on a daily basis, there is no way the public is going to support making more concessions to the Palestinian. Can you imagine the IDF evacuating settlers by force, a project that can take weeks, while rockets kill children in Sderot? No politician will want to be the face behind that move. The rockets are an existential threat, because they paralyze the political sphere.
“In a climate where Israeli settlements are being bombed on a daily basis,”
But surely they are not today? Do you feel that continued repression a la Gaza/West Bank is the way forward, with a war every 6 years to keep the natives in place? The bantustaqn solution?
Or: “halting the “rain of rockets” was not the goal of cast lead from the beginning.”
Not true. Let’s start with the official goal, stated in the first week of the operation: “To hit hard the Hamas regime in order to make a better security reality over time around the Gaza Strip, while strengthening deterrence and reducing the firing of rockets as much as possible”.
Or: “the cease fire was semi restored till december”
November, a month before the cease-fire was supposed to end, was full of rocket attacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2008
Or: “both sides maintained the need to continue the cease fir[e]”
Hamas declared officially, before Israel, that the cease-fire is over. Hamas also fired rockets. As you can see from the link above, the rain of rockets started way before the “cease-fire” even began. So Israel knew what it was like. Please help me, because I don’t want to put words into your mouth. Maybe your opinion was that after all that Israel should have still given Hamas another chance?
Well, that’s a fair opinion, but more people decided that they don’t want to buy the Hamas b-s anymore. The situation was bad enough that even people in the far left-wing (like Yossi Gurvitz, who writes for this blog) supported a military operation.
Here, before the cease-fire started (sorry, use google-translate):
http://www.hahem.co.il/friendsofgeorge/?p=150
and here, after Hamas declared it was over:
http://www.hahem.co.il/friendsofgeorge/?p=318
I think that minimizing the amount of rockets, and maximizing the deterrence was the goal most Israelis had in mind for this operation. In my opinion, these goals were met – but at a price. As Martin phrased it, we lost the moral high-ground in the eye of the world. Hopefully we can restore it, and more importantly, start evacuating some settlers now that the security is better.
joni – my answer will be published her in a few days hopefully. you will not agree.
@Joni: but in short for the mean time –
“Let’s start with the official goal” – let’s not. I have no interest in propoganda.
“November, a month before the cease-fire was supposed to end, was full of rocket attacks” – read what I’ve said semi restored – hamas retliated the level of firing was not restored to the pre idf incursion level, nor did the idf incursion btw.
and a sid note – wikipedia, especially the hebrew one is a very poor information source regarding political issues.
“Hamas declared officially, before Israel, that the cease-fire is over” – we can go on like this forever – simply not true.
as for yossi – I disagreed with him vehemently at the time.
(also – a month and one war later – http://www.hahem.co.il/friendsofgeorge/?p=334)
and I think your last paragraph summerises one of our main differences – you are interested in putting out fires. I tend also to look for the source of the fuel that feeds it.
Martin: “I am a military historian by hobby, and there is a certain arithmetic in the pure numbers of conflicts that I think cuts beneath the usual blather of political arguments.”
Martin, I think this warfare is not the one you are used to. When one side invests millions of dollars in equipment and training to protect its citizens and soldiers, and the other side tries to maximize the number of civilian casualties in their own side – this is the arithmetic you get. [Now I agree this does not the whole story of this war, but it's a large part of it].
The goal of Hamas is not to have a military victory over Israel (obviously they can’t achieve that). Their goal is also not to stop the siege on Gaza. Their goal is the opposite – it’s to make Israel re-occupy Gaza. It’s to maintain the occupation that Israel currently have on the West-Bank. To undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state. As long as there is an occupation, Hamas still have a chance to force Israel into a “one-state-solution”.
Here it is, in their own words:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article721211.ece
This is why they were firing from Gaza. This is why it is their interest to have high civilian casualties. And this explains the complicated situation in which Israel is in – Israel wants to stop controlling the Palestinians but Hamas can effectively “veto” any agreement with the PA.
Martin: “surely they are not [bombing Israeli settlements] today?”
No they aren’t. And this is because of the last war, and maybe also because that with the right-winged government Israel have now, they don’t fear any political agreement at the horizon.
Or: The Yossi example was in order to argue that “minimizing the amount of rockets, and maximizing the deterrence was the goal most Israelis had in mind for this operation.” It is not relevant what you, or even him, thought about the war *after* it had ended. The point is that when the war started there was a consensus *across-the-board* that a military action is justified in order to eliminate the Quassam threat.
This is opposed to your claim earlier that minimizing the number of rockets “was not the goal of cast lead from the beginning”.
[...] לקרוא לזה כך, של הבלוג הזה הייתה המלחמה המיותרת הקודמת. הנה משהו שכתבתי לכבוד חגיגות השנה למלחמה בישראלפט. שנה שמחה וטובה [...]