The November 22 ceasefire between Israeli
and Hamas forces is a huge relief for the civilian
population on both sides - the primary victims of
the conflict. But the Barack Obama
administration's unconscionable decision the
previous week to block a ceasefire effort by the
UN Security Council not only resulted in
additional civilian deaths but also serves as an
indication that, despite the president owing his
re-election to the hard work of his progressive
base, his foreign policy will continue to lean to
the right.
The draft resolution blocked by
the United States explicitly condemned all acts of
terrorism and violence towards civilians,
reaffirmed the right of all states to live in
peace within secure and recognized borders, and
called for an immediate and durable ceasefire. It
reiterated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could
only be resolved through
peaceful means and called for an immediate
resumption of a substantive bilateral negotiating
process between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.
This even-handedness was too
much for the Obama administration, however, which
promised to prevent the passage of any statement
or resolution that didn't explicitly put the blame
for the violence solely on Hamas. The
administration's blockage of any consideration of
any other effort made it appear as though
President Obama would rather have the slaughter
continue.
It is doubtful whether many
people at the United Nations will take Ambassador
Susan Rice seriously again when she complains
about Russia and China vetoing UN Security Council
resolutions that seek to stop the slaughter in
Syria after her own blocking of UNSC efforts
trying to stop the slaughter in Gaza.
Though Rice has appropriately condemned
Palestinians when Islamist radicals fire rockets
into Israel, she has also opposed non-violent
forms of resisting the occupation as well, such as
rejecting recommendations by the UN's independent
special rapporteur on human rights (who happens to
be an American Jew) for a boycott of companies
supporting Israel's illegal colonization of the
West Bank as "irresponsible and unacceptable".
The United States has also threatened to
block any effort by the Palestine Authority to
upgrade its status at the United Nations or to
raise its concerns about ongoing Israeli
violations of international humanitarian law with
the International Court of Justice or the UN Human
Rights Council.
The administration has
also adamantly opposed the use of strategic
non-violent action to help ease the suffering of
the people of the Gaza Strip, defending Israel's
attacks on unarmed ships on the high seas seeking
to bring relief supplies. It appears that the
United States wants the Palestinians instead
simply to trust the "peace process" - brokered by
world's primary military, economic, and diplomatic
supporter of their occupier - with a right-wing
government that rejects the necessary territorial
compromise for a viable Palestinian state.
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai has
acknowledged that the goal of the offensive is to
"send Gaza back to the middle ages", but Obama
insisted that Israel's massive assault on the
densely populated enclave was simply about
"self-defense". While the rest of the world
acknowledged that both sides were wrong, Obama
insisted it was all the fault of the weaker party.
More than 25 times as many Palestinian
civilians died from Israeli attacks than Israelis
died from Palestinian attacks in the recent
fighting, yet the Obama administration insisted
that only the Israelis had the right to resist.
Obama proclaimed that "There's no country on earth
that would tolerate missiles raining down on its
citizens from outside its borders." Yet he
insisted that Palestinians must somehow tolerate
much greater destruction without striking back.
Indeed, in response to the outcry at the
growing number of civilian casualties from the
Israeli bombardment of civilian areas of the Gaza
Strip, Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser
Ben Rhodes insisted, "The Israelis are going to
make decisions about their own military tactics
and operations." When pressed as to whether the
Obama administration would support international
efforts to try to prevent an Israeli ground
invasion of the Gaza Strip, Rhodes replied,
"They'll make their own decisions about the
tactics that they use in that regard."
Meanwhile, both the US Senate and House
passed by unanimous consent resolutions defending
Israel's ongoing war on the Gaza Strip. Unlike the
Obama administration's statements in support of
Israel's attacks, these resolutions failed to call
on both sides to exercise restraint and expressed
no regret at the resulting casualties. In contrast
to similar resolutions four years ago in support
of Israel's deadly Operation Cast Lead, there was
nothing in these most recent resolutions calling
on the parties to avoid civilian casualties or
work towards a durable and sustainable ceasefire.
Nor was there any call for the president to try to
calm the situation.
Representative Dennis
Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio) noted how this supposedly
"unanimous" vote supporting Israel's war on Gaza
was taken with "no notice, no committee hearing,
no discussion and no debate," adding, "In such a
fashion, we achieve unanimity on great matters
related to the Middle East."
Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no doubt
emboldened in launching his recent offensive by
the strong support Israel received from the United
States four years ago. For example, the US House
of Representatives - in a direct challenge to the
credibility of Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, the International Red Cross, and other
reputable humanitarian organizations - passed a
resolution in January of 2009 declaring that the
Israeli armed forces bore no responsibility for
the large numbers of civilian casualties from
their assault on the Gaza Strip.
The
resolution put forward a disturbing
reinterpretation of international humanitarian
law: that, by allegedly breaking the cease-fire,
Hamas was responsible for all subsequent deaths,
and that the presence of Hamas officials or
militia members in mosques, hospitals, or
residential areas made those locations legitimate
targets.
The human rights investigations
from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
the UNHRC, and elsewhere examined Israeli claims
that Hamas' alleged use of "human shields" was
responsible for the large number of civilian
casualties. While these probes sharply criticized
Hamas for at times having men and materiel too
close to civilian-populated areas, they were
unable to find even one incident of Hamas
deliberately holding civilians against their will
in an effort to deter Israeli attacks, the legal
definition of using human shields.
The
Obama administration and congressional leaders,
however, insisted that they knew more about what
happened inside the Gaza Strip than these expert
human rights monitors and respected international
jurists on the ground. They made similarly dubious
claims to justify the most recent wave of Israeli
attacks on civilian population centers.
As
Amnesty and other human rights groups have
observed, however, even if Hamas were using human
shields, it would still not justify Israel killing
Palestinian civilians. Indeed, if a botched bank
robbery resulted in a hostage situation, it would
not justify the police killing the bank's
customers and tellers on the grounds that the
robbers were using them as human shields.
In February 2009, Amnesty International
called for an international arms embargo on both
Israel and Hamas to prevent the kind of tragic
attacks on civilians in which both sides are
currently engaging. As an indication of his lack
of support for international humanitarian law,
Obama categorically rejected Amnesty's proposal
and instead increased US military aid to Israel to
record levels. We saw the tragic results during
the most recent wave of attacks. As it did four
years earlier, Amnesty International has again
called for an international arms embargo on both
Israel and Hamas. Once again, however, it appears
Obama and Congress will ignore it.
If
Obama, as a private citizen, gave a gun to someone
whom he knew would likely use it in a crime and a
crime was committed with that gun, he could go to
jail. He could not get away with saying, "This guy
lives in a dangerous neighborhood and I thought he
might need it for self-defense." As president,
however, Obama can provide Netanyahu with billions
of dollars' worth of weapons, some of which he
knows would likely be targeted in populated
neighborhoods resulting in civilian deaths, and
never face the consequences.
The latest
and most deadly round of fighting began when the
fragile truce was broken by the assassination of
Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari. The Israeli
media has reported that al-Jabari was in the
process of negotiating a permanent truce. The
Israeli government has had a history of killing
Palestinian leaders once they moderate their
activism.
And Hamas and other extremist
groups have a history of lobbing rockets towards
civilian-populated areas inside Israel, which is
not only illegal and immoral, but is incredibly
stupid in terms of hardening Israeli attitudes
even further. Indeed, Hamas' actions set back the
cause of Israeli moderates. And Israel's actions
set back the cause of Palestinian moderates. More
salient to those of us in the United States,
Obama's actions hurt both.
The great wish
of the early Zionist leader Theodor Herzl was that
Israel would be treated like any other state. And
there are certainly those who do unfairly single
out Israel for criticism. It is just as wrong,
however, to unfairly exempt Israel from criticism
for its violations of international humanitarian
law in its ongoing aerial bombardments of civilian
neighborhoods, as the Obama administration has
done.
Those of us who supported Obama's
re-election have a special obligation to challenge
his unconscionable support for Israel's attacks
against civilian population centers in the Gaza
Strip. It was wrong when George W Bush did it four
years ago. And it's wrong now.
Stephen Zunes is a professor of
Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at
the University of San Francisco.
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