CAIRO (AP) — The third Gaza war is playing out much like
the first one more than five years ago: The harrowing civilian toll in
Gaza is now at the center of the discourse, eclipsing the rocket attacks
by Hamas militants that were the stated reason for the Israeli assault.
Then
as now, a question persists: Beyond the carnage, are Israel’s
airstrikes against civilian locations achieving anything at all?
It
ended messily for Israel in 2009. A U.N. commission investigated,
Israel refused to cooperate, and the resulting report — since then
partly disavowed by its own author, former South African judge Richard
Goldstone — said Israel deliberately targeted civilians and might have
committed war crimes, along with Hamas.
About 1,400 Palestinians,
including many hundreds of civilians, were killed in the operation
dubbed "Cast Lead," along with 13 Israelis. After 18 days this year, the
civilian death toll of operation "Protective Edge" is at similar levels
— and the proportion is higher. Israel’s argument is similar as well:
Hamas is to blame not only for attacking a much-stronger power with
rockets, but also for operating from within heavily populated
residential areas, as well as mosques, hospitals and schools.
Navi
Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Wednesday
that some of the recent Israeli attacks, including those on homes and on
a care center for the disabled, raise "a strong possibility that
international law has been violated in a manner that could amount to war
crimes."
She also condemned indiscriminate Hamas attacks —
including 3,000 rockets fired since July 8 that have killed several
civilians in Israel — and said storing military equipment in civilian
areas or launching attacks from there is unacceptable. But "the actions
of one party do not absolve the other party of the need to respect its
obligations under international law," she added.
International law
can be a fuzzy and subjective thing, its application dependent on
circumstances. The wider context also affects the degree of political
pressure on Israel to stop. So it is important to note that there are
also key differences between now and 2009. Here’s a comparative look:
THE ROCKETS HAVE MORE RANGE
It
is hard for outsiders to grasp the meaning, to Israelis, of Tel Aviv.
The seaside metropolis of about 2 million is prosperous and fun, and an
easy, generally liberal atmosphere prevails. It is a place of high tech,
of electric nightlife, of diverse and highly Westernized culture, of
surfing and gay pride parades. It is essential to an often unspoken but
profound feeling that many Israelis cling to, which oddly aligns with
what Arab critics would say: That they somehow do not belong in the
Middle East.
In 2009, Hamas was firing relatively small
projectiles with minimal range, mostly aimed at border communities
surrounding the blockaded Gaza Strip. These are gritty places:
hardscrabble towns that are relatively poor; or kibbutz farming
communities whose people are often idealistic and pioneering. The people
under fire there were certainly displeased, but by and large had no
illusions about where they live.
Now Hamas is firing at Tel Aviv,
which is 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the strip, and even at some
cities beyond. One landed near Tel Aviv’s airport, causing U.S. and
European airlines to suspend flights. Millions are living with the
threat of rockets every day. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can go on
TV and ask Americans what they would do if New York or Chicago were
under constant rocket attack. The argument resonates, the world seems to
be listening, and even many in the Arab world agree. So Israel gets
more room to maneuver.
IT’S NOT THE SAME HAMAS
Hamas rode relatively high in 2009, in its own particular way.
The
Islamic militant group had legitimately won Palestinian parliamentary
elections in 2006, was denied the share of power it wanted by
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and in a little over a year had
battled its way to full control of Gaza. It promised cleaner government
than the Palestinian Authority and was relatively popular as a result.
Israelis and much of the world, remembering suicide bombings and bus
attacks, rejected Hamas as a terrorist group, to be blockaded and
shunned. But in the Arab world at least, there was a veneer of
legitimacy. Hamas had powerful supporters in Iran and the Gulf, and
neighboring Egypt was not openly an enemy back then.
Much has
happened since in the Arab world, and it hasn’t helped Hamas. The Arab
Spring brought a wave of Islamist successes, following by a widespread
sense of their misrule. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, which largely
spawned Hamas, is now outlawed; its leaders are on trial and the group
is portrayed by media as terrorists. Jihadis cut from a similar cloth as
Hamas are considered in leading Arab circles to have brought
destruction and disgrace in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Egypt’s own
Sinai region.
There is not much love for Israel in the Arab world,
and growing horror at the civilian deaths in Gaza. But many in the
region seem nonetheless pleased to see Hamas get hammered, and some
would be happier still to see it gone. The Obama administration seems
more involved in the region than that of President George W. Bush in its
final days: Secretary of State John Kerry and other international
negotiators are scrambling around the Middle East, but genuine pressure
seems lacking. More maneuvering room for Israel.
NETANYAHU IS NO OLMERT
There
are two kinds of governments in Israel when it comes to the heart of
the matter, which is peace with the Palestinians and the possibility of a
Palestinian state.
One kind was in power during "Cast Lead."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was clearly committed to pulling out of the
West Bank one way or another and was making rather far-reaching offers
to Abbas: a state in all of Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank,
and a share in Jerusalem. For a variety of reasons no deal was struck,
but Olmert was perceived as serious on the Palestinian issue. This opens
doors and spreads positivity, and Israel enjoyed some space as a
result.
It’s a very different story under Netanyahu. He dropped
his lifelong opposition to a Palestinian state in recent years — but his
terms are very far from those of the Palestinians. Jewish settlement
construction in the West Bank is roaring ahead, and nine months of peace
talks got scarcely beyond quibbles and procedure. Netanyahu’s own party
continues to oppose a Palestinian state, and there is a sense of a wink
about his moves in this regard. And so the region and the world view
him with considerable suspicion. If he were fighting anyone but Hamas,
the atmosphere for Israel would be most uncomfortable by now.
A SENSE OF PREDICTABLE FUTILITY
During
the 2008-9 campaign, it was not exactly clear what the outcome would
be. Would Hamas break under the assault? Would the people of Gaza blame
Hamas for their suffering and overthrow the group? Is victory possible?
It was not even clear whether Israel ruled out reoccupying the strip,
from which it had withdrawn four years earlier.
The answers to
those questions are clearer now. In both campaigns, as well as another
one in late 2012, Hamas has shown that it will simply continue firing
rockets no matter what the outcome to the people of Gaza.
Hamas does
not seem on the verge of being overthrown despite its heavy-handed rule.
And the people actually support Hamas’ stated goal of ending the
Israeli-Egyptian blockade so much that there seems to be scant pressure
on Hamas to give in. On the Israeli side, there is minimal desire to
retake the inhospitable strip.
It’s also clear that Israel’s
various efforts to minimize the deaths with a variety of warnings aren’t
working well. For the third time, the world sees images of whole
families buried under rubble, of children in a morgue. And for all its
claims of precision, Israel’s military is having trouble producing
detailed explanations of why any particular building was hit.
It
lends a sense of predictable futility to the proceedings, and raises
questions in Israel itself about the strategy. The answer tends to be
that doing nothing in response to rocket fire on cities is not an
option. That logic dominates the Israeli discourse for now. But to many,
it is starting to feel uncomfortable nonetheless.
___
Dan
Perry has covered the Middle East since the 1990s and currently leads
Associated Press’ text coverage in the region. Follow him on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/perry_dan.