Reportage from Israel/Gaza

Yovan Diskin is the head of Shin Bet, Israel's storied and formidable Security Agency. He has, to my knowledge, never spoken. Not since the beginning of this war, at any rate. He is about forty years old. He is tall. Massive. A military man belied by jeans, tennis shoes and a t-shirt. He welcomes me at dawn in his office north of Tel Aviv, which, with its widened embrasures, looks like a bunker. "All of this for Sderot?," I started. This flood of fire, these victims, to stop the Qassam missiles in Sderot and the other cities and kibbutzes in the south of the country? "Yes, of course," he answers me, quite irritated. "There is no other State in the world that would tolerate seeing shells fall on the heads of its citizens every day." Then, as I tell him that I know this, as I tell him that, every time I go to Israel, I go to Sderot out of principle and solidarity, and as I also tell him that there were perhaps means, in negotiating, to avoid arriving at this juncture, he interrupts himself, oddly shrugs his shoulders, and, in the tone of someone about to get into technical details, continues.

"You must understand, in this case, who the members of Hamas are. We know them here, better than anyone. Sometimes I have the impression that I can know in real time, sometimes even predict, what their most minor decisions are. We have now become aware of three things." Someone brings him a cup of coffee that he swallows in one gulp. "Their strategy, which is also that of the Muslim Brothers, of whom they are scions and who, over the course of time, plan to take power in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Israel..." I signal to him that I know what he's talking about. "Anyway. Then there is the alliance with Iran, which can seem counterintuitive because of how serious contentions between the Sunnis and Shiites are, but whose entire history we have seen." The date: 1993. The theater: a council of Syrian, Saudi, West Bank, and Gazan ulema. The inspirer: the Egyptian El Khardaoui, importer of the Shiite suicide attempt strategy into Sunni terrain. "And then, finally, the essential: the network of three hundred tunnels, dug under the Egyptian border with the tacit approval of Moubarak who, every time we talked to him about it, swore that he was going to see to the problem, but who unfortunately did nothing because he was too afraid to go against his national Muslim Brothers..." We could, as Israeli pacifists do, tell ourselves that the destruction of these tunnels would have been sufficient. As is the case with me, we could gather that, this war having already exposed the existence of these tunnels to the world, and thus having put the Egyptians up against the wall, Israel could stop there and, today, cease fire. What we can't ignore is this fact -- this context: Gaza which, evacuated, is becoming not the embryo of the so-desired Palestinian State, but the advance base of a total war against the Jewish State.

I am close to Oum al-Fahim, in Baka El-Garbil -- one of those cities of Israeli Arabs who chose in 1948 to stay in their land and which, sixty years later, make up twenty percent of the country's population. This afternoon, the entire city is in the street. There are 15,000 people protesting the "genocide" in Gaza. There are militants coiffed in the checkerboard keffiyeh of Fatah. Others are waving the green flag of Hamas. I even see, at the head of the procession, young people wearing hoods and screaming, in the very heart of Israel, calls to intifada, to jihad, to martyrdom. "The Israel that you spew, isn't it your Israel?," I ask one of them. "Isn't it the State you are citizens of, with the same name and the same rights as its other citizens?" The boy looks at me as if I were crazy. He tells me that Israel is a racist State that treats him as sub-human, forbids him from going to university and to nightclubs, and, as a consequence, that Israel can expect no loyalty from him. On that note he catches up with his friends, leaving me to my perplexity: the solidity of a democracy that, in a time of war, is dealing with the fact that one out of five citizens is bordering on political secession -- and the vertiginous frailty of a social tie that could easily come undone from the inside. Another context? No. But the situation of Israel.

"Nothing justifies the death of a kid," Asaf, 33 years old, tells me. He is the owner of a restaurant in New York, and in his "reserve" periods, pilot of a Cobra helicopter. "Nothing. And that's why, when the risks exists, when I realize in my cockpit that I can harm civilians in aiming at a military target, I pull back and return to base." I challenged Asaf to bring me proof of what he was saying. And that is how I find myself here, in the Neguev on the Palmachim base, the holy of holies of Israeli technology where the notorious anti-missile Arrow missiles were tested. Asaf's on-board videos. In a recording of a January 3rd conversation, an interlocutor on the ground informs him of his decision to stop everything because the "terrorist" he has in his line of sight has just been joined by a child. And what incredible films -- I screened four -- of already-launched missiles turning back in mid-course and exploding in a field when the pilot saw a civilian appear on his screen, or saw that the targeted jeep was pulling into the garage of an apartment building whose occupants had not been alerted (as is customary). I seriously doubt that everyone has the same scruples. Otherwise, how to explain the too numerous and unacceptable bloodbaths? But it is important to say that there are Asafs in Tzahal, to say that the procedures direct them to act like Asaf, in short, to say that Asaf is not the exception but the rule -- and too bad for the cliché that wants to reduce Tzahal to a bunch of brutes victimizing women and the elderly.

Ehud Barak at home. Yesterday, I saw him surrounded by his generals in Palmachim. And today I find him in this long sitting-room that seems to have been constructed around the two pianos which he plays like a virtuoso. He also evokes the moral dilemma that confronts his army. He describes the calculations of a Hamas that installs its arms depots in the courtyards of schools, of hospital rooms, of mosques, precisely because it knows the modus operandi of the Israelis. "We have two choices," he explains to me with, I swear, a strategist's curiosity facing an unprecedented tactic. "Either we have the information and do not strike - they have won. Or we ignore it and strike - then they film the victims, send the images to television, and have also won." I get ready to ask him how the man from Camp David, the Dove who, nine years ago, offered to Arafat the keys to the Palestinian State that he was after, personally saw the dilemma. And I am also about to object that Israel would not be in this situation without the series of missed opportunities, of faux pas, of blindness of the governments that followed. But the phone rings. It's Condoleezza Rice who is calling to pressure him, as it turns out, to reach a cease-fire very quickly. "Why very quickly, in your opinion?" The minister-pianist smiles... "Because, in the next ten days, the cease fire will either be her accomplishment, Condi's, or that of Barack (Obama) who will steal her 'legacy'."

Amos Oz is distraught. I find the great writer, the author of Aidez-nous à divorcer the conscience of the country and, in particular, of the Peace camp, in Jerusalem at the home of our mutual friend Shimon Peres. He recalls how Tzahal had to treat the affair of the "genocide of Jenine" (66 dead, among whom 23 Israelis). Then, at the time of the war with Lebanon, the case of the Cana drama -- a remake, according to some, of the assault on the Warsaw ghetto. We also speak of the terrifying weapons that Tzahal would use (and whose effect would be to "swallow" oxygen around the point of impact). But the rumor du jour--the story that they [Tzahal] would have drawn a hundred people into the Zeitoun zone before firing into the crowd seems so outrageous that he doesn't know how to make heads or tails of it, and doesn't even understand how it came into being. It seems to him that everything started with a vague witness account taken down by an NGO. Then a few journalists: "Let the press in -- how can we refute hearsay stories if we're not there?" Then it was the planetary village of media that got all worked up: "Tzahal appears to have... Tzahal might have... Dr. X confirms that Tzahal is at the origin of..." Ah, the poison of these subtle and so-called cautious conditionals! In two days, we will no longer be talking about the Zeitoun rumor. But what will the world conclude? That it's because it was absurd? Or because one horror tops another, and that Tzahal would have in the process climbed one more rung on the ladder of abomination and crime? Oz, the Camus of Israel. Disinformation, or the Hebrew myth of Sisyphus.

Another rumor whose unfounded character I was able to verify -- this time, myself: that of the "humanitarian embargo." I skip over the case of the Shiba Hospital in Tel Aviv whose deputy director, Raphi Walden, explains to me that seventy percent of the patients are Palestinian. I skip over the case of the ambulances accidentally hit by Tzahal, but intentionally blocked by Hamas' Ministry of Health, who takes its own civilians hostage, and who especially does not want to see them cared for at the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheba. I gathered the decisive information on Wednesday, January 14, at the Keren Shalom terminal: on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, a hundred trucks pass, like every morning, under the vigilant eye of NGO representatives. Flour... Medicine... Baby food... Blankets... Nothing, nobody, and most of all not the usual humanitarian bandage will alleviate, here as elsewhere, the suffering of the families who have lost one of their own. But the facts are the facts. And the fact is that more than 20,000 tons have entered since the beginning of the operation under the auspices of Unicef or the World Food Program. Like Colonel Jehuda Weintraub -- who was in another life the author of a thesis on Chrétien de Troyes, and who serves in the "Coordination" of the aid effort at the age of sixty -- tells me: "War is always horrible, criminal, full of fury; why, in the face of such atrocity, do we need to add lies?"

The mood intensifies in Paris. Jean-Marie Le Pen declares that Gaza is a concentration camp. Others, from the radical left, thunder that there has not been a worse massacre of Muslims than that of the Gazans in a long time. What about the 300,000 Darfuris, friends? And the 200,000 Bosnians? And the dozens of thousands of Chechens that Putin was going to "shove into the latrines" -- and that did not make you shed a tear? Anxious, unlike you, to try at the very least to go and to see, I went at nightfall -- embedded in an elite Golani unite -- this Tuesday, January 13, to the suburbs of Gaza-City, the Abasan Al-Jadida quarter, a kilometer north of Khan Younes. I know, having avoided it all my life, that the point of view of the embedded is never the good one. And I am not going to claim to have captured the spirit of this war in a few hours. But having said that, I give my witness account. The combatants of Warsaw did not have, unfortunately, anti-tank mines like the one that had just exploded under the wheels of a vehicle that passed twenty minutes before ours. Their assailants didn't have the lassitude, the profound disgust of war that Commandant Guidi Kfirel and the four reservists that accompanied us express. And then, finally, I may be mistaken, but the little, the very little, that I see (buildings plunged into the darkness, but standing, the neglected orchards, Khalil al-Wazeer street with its closed shops) indicates an afflicted city, transformed into a mousetrap, terrorized -- but certainly not razed in the same sense as Grozny or certain quarters of Sarajevo back then. Perhaps will I be proven wrong when the media is finally let into Gaza? This is, once again, a fact.

Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. He recounts, not without humor, the ballet of the hurried mediators. He comes back to the double game of Mubarak, who the international community will clearly have to force to close his border to Bedouin smugglers. But here he changes tone. And, in a quieter voice, as if in confidence, he starts telling me about Abou Mazen's last visit three weeks ago, in this office, in the same seat where I find myself. "I made him an offer. 94.5% of the West Bank. Plus 4.5% in the form of the exchange of territories. Plus a tunnel, under his control, linking the West Bank to Gaza and equivalent to the missing 1%. And, as for Jerusalem, a logical and simple solution: the Arab quarters for him; the Jewish quarters for us; and the Holy Places under joint Saudi, Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian, and American administration. Abou Mazen asked me to leave the map on which I had drawn my map. I didn't do it because I know him and I know how, the next time, he could have taken my paper as a point of departure for a counter-negotiation. But anyway... The offer is there... I'm waiting..." Too good to be true? Could we have come so recently so close to peace?

Abou Mazen is not in Ramallah, capital of moderate Palestinians. Neither is Yasser Abdel Rabbo, with whom we supported back then the Geneva plan for peace, and who is also in Cairo. In their stead, in an apartment building downtown, I see Mustapha Barghouti, President of the Palestinian Relief Society -- as well as Mamdou Aker, doctor, moral authority and veteran of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Neither men take seriously an offer of peace made by a Prime Minister on his way out. Both speak with severity about Abou Mazen, guilty of instating a "police State." And I sense most of all how they take care especially not to say anything that appears to condemn Hamas, whose Palestinian streets, they know, are united. And yet... Thinking back on it, listening to the first tell me about his nostalgia for the "Saudi plan" of the coexistence of the two States, and seeing the second become animated just at the mention of his published "Letter to Itzak Rabin" in 1988 by the Jerusalem Post because Arab newspapers rejected him, and finally observing, on my way back, the appearance of young people and the unveiled faces of young girls in line, with me, to enter Jerusalem at the Kalandiya checkpoint, I catch myself believing anew. They are there, of course, the interlocutors of Israel. They are there, the partners of future peace. A peace in spite of everything. A peace beyond devastation and tears. A peace of reason, without effusion and enthusiasm -- but perhaps, for that, more than ever at our fingertips. Two peoples, two States. A dry sober peace.

Translated from the French by Sara Phenix.

Comments

[Karma7]

11:26 AM on 01/26/2009

Dear Mr. Lévy,

Why is the word “Zionist ” omitted from your article about Israel? .

I think it is completely inaccurate to identiffy Israel as a “Jewish State”, when, in fact, Israel's Zionist policies do not represent the Jewish people or Judaism.

Judaism is not synonymous with Zionism
Judaism is a religious, ethical way of life which goes back thousands of years. Zionism is an immoral political movement barely 100 years old; and its policies of colonialis­m, racism, genocide, apartheid are irreconcil­able with the religion of Judaism. .

http://www­.doublesta­ndards.org­/jaz1.html
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=cA2PsnNGG­l0
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=em2JB6eys­Qo

[coreyishere]

10:07 PM on 01/25/2009

"94.5% of the West Bank..." If his offer as anything like the 2000 offer, it will still include Israeli presence and control, in one form or another. These people, the Israelis, have a way of telling things without telling *everythin­g* in order to support their victimhood­.

[ajax2]

11:54 AM on 01/26/2009

From 60 Minutes,
"Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate to become prime minister in elections next month. She's also Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinia­ns, and she told 60 Minutes peace is unthinkabl­e with the settlers where they are.

"Can you really imagine evacuating the tens of thousands of settlers who say they will not leave?" Simon asked.

"It's not going to be easy. But this is the only solution," she replied."

The next Israel election will determine peace or apartheid.

[AtheistUS]

03:08 PM on 01/26/2009

Tzipi Livni would be best, seems most serious of all candidates­.
By the way, about 'the good side' (unquestio­nably good side, accordingl­y to many who posts here):
http://www­.corriere.­it/esteri/­09_gennaio­_21/denunc­ia_hamas_c­remonesi_a­c41c6f4-e8­02-11dd-83­3f-00144f0­2aabc.shtm­l

[Wisdo]

11:44 AM on 01/27/2009

it was 94.5% of an Israeli defined 100%. So you can have 94.5% of "the cake"* as long as you understand the "the cake" refers to a small slice of "the pie"

[hulka37]

07:46 PM on 01/25/2009

Reap, meet Sow.

[zukervati]

08:04 PM on 01/25/2009

Succinct and to the point - bravo!

[JayLaw]

07:39 PM on 01/25/2009

The Bush legacy in the Middle East truly is sickening. The chance for a peaceful solution has been clear for years - a two state solution with a just resolution for the Palestinia­n refugees. The 2002 Arab-Israe­li initiative­, which offers all Arab countries peace with Israel in exchange for a Palestinia­n state in the 1967 borders in Gaza and the West Bank, is losing any chance for success because of the Israel's continued expansion of the illegal settlement­s in the West Bank.

The problem - and solution - is overstated as "complicat­ed." The solution is before us and the door of opportunit­y is quickly closing. As long as the USA continues to blindly support Israel and not evenhanded­ly press all parties to work towards the solution, the time of opportunit­y will pass and Israel will be nothing more than an apartheid state. I pray for the Palestinia­ns and Israel, that the Obama administra­tion will finally have the moral strength to stand up to Israel and show them that it is in their own best interest to resolve the Palestinia­n conflict with a just solution before it's too late.

[Indubio]

10:04 PM on 01/25/2009

The solution should be clear and to you and I it is. I would suspect to most Israelis it is clear, The problem is simple and it is only partly related to Israeli intransige­nce. In fact, Hamas has no interest in peace with Israel. There can be a two state solution once Hamas is obliterate­d from this planet. The only thing Hamas cares about is preservati­on of Hamas. If there is peace, the purpose of Hamas becomes uncertain and their reason for existing ends. They have no interest in behaving like a real government and their extinction of Fatah simply proves my point. They would gladly kill their own people to preserve and enhance their own power. I also don't buy into the collective punishment argument. Hamas was democratic­ally elected and Gazans knew very well what Hamas would do vis a vis Israel. They didn't care. Gazans should have rose up and started hanging Hamas thugs from street lights but they didn't and most sat back and watched Fatah be destroyed. No peace can exist as long a Hamas exists. A sad situation for sure.

[jwcmass]

07:12 AM on 01/29/2009

I think a good argument can be made that Hamas has been Israel's "ally"

Let me explain. As long as Hamas (or another extremist group) exists, Israel has the perfect excuse NOT to deal with what will be ITS biigest obstacle to a GENUINE two state solution--­namely the Israeli settlement­s that cover the West Bank, and the determined settler movement that considers ALL the land from the Mediterran­ean to tne Jordan (and in some cases even lays claim to Jordan) as part of Israel.

This movement is like a ticking time bomb for Israel, far bigger than any threat that the Palestinia­ns present., for (as the poster above says) the Palestinia­ns do NOT present an existentia­l threat to Israel, but the Settler movement, though small in numbers, has exercised political power in Israel far greater than their numbers would indicate, and eliminatin­g the settlement­s could literally tear the country in two (and result in a civil war)

This is why, ironically­, Hamas is a "friend" to Israel because Hamas gives Israel the excuse to further put off dealing with what will be a painful decision.

If Israel was serious about peace, they could freeze ALL expansion of settlement­s, and begin closing some of the smaller ones. that would also be a strong signal to the Palestinai­ns that Israel REALLY IS serious about Peace, and isn't just making empty promises. This would greatly help Abbas strengthen his position with his people as a man who can deliver results.

[Dameocrat]

05:20 PM on 01/25/2009

Back when the PLO was in charge the Israelis claimed they were reformable terrorists­, and refused to negotiate with them. Remember that was the excuse for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

There is a moderate wing of Hamas. Israel will just have to negotiate with them. I am sure they would accept an israeli state is Israel would return the favor.

There is not Palestinia­n org acceptable to Israel. All Israeli parties are Likud whether they admit it or not.

The idea that they are at total war with Israel is laughable, Israel is not experienci­ng ANY EXISTENTIA­L THREAT! None!

[jeffepops]

10:05 PM on 01/25/2009

And what will happen if, and when, the "moderate wing" of Hamas emerges and recognizes Israel's right to exist ; will not the radical wing attack and undermine them, just as Hamas did with the PLO? How can you be so certain of such the future you predict?

By the way, Israel did negotiate with the PLO -- it formally recognized the PLO/PA even before the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist. Don't ignore the facts in order to expound a baseless theory.

[Wozzeck]

04:05 PM on 01/25/2009

When will the Huffington Post feature a narrative from a PALESTINIA­N who survived the Gaza attacks?

[Caton]

07:10 PM on 01/25/2009

Never.

[yappnmutt]

07:42 PM on 01/25/2009

at least not without a disclaimer­.

[Jimmyboyo]

03:10 PM on 01/25/2009

Whow helped create Hamas???

The secular PLO being secular with no "gawwwwwd" or holy text underlinin­g their goals was someone who could have been dealt with/ compromise­d with. Secular orgs can compromise­. The PLO did finaly aknowledge the existence of Israel

BUT instead wanting to deal with NO organized palestinia­n group led Israel to back Hamas. Train Hamas. Finanace Hamas in the begining as a counterwei­ght to the PLO.

Well, the religous nuttery based HAMAS did render the secular PLO powerless but now Israel has to deal with a religous monster of its creation. Hamas can not and will not compromise because they are religous with "gawwwwwdd­dddd" on their supposed side.

Hamas makes compromisi­ng with the secular PLO look like a great thing but it is too late. Israel backed Hamas to destroy/ neuter the PLO and now Israel must deal with a religous monster of its own creation.

[GilGamish]

06:13 PM on 01/25/2009

"The secular PLO being secular with no "gawwwwwd" or holy text underlinin­g their goals"

Really ?

From the draft of the Palestinia­n constituti­on by the Palestinia­n Constituti­on Committee. President Yasir Arafat establishe­d the Committee in November 1999

http://www­.pcpsr.org­/domestic/­2001/const­e1.html

Article 7

The principles of the Islamic Shari`a are a primary source for legislatio­n. The legislativ­e branch shall determine personal status law under the authority of the monotheist­ic religions according to their denominati­ons, in keeping with the provisions of the constituti­on and the preservati­on of unity, stability, and advancemen­t of the Palestinia­n people.

[jwcmass]

05:14 AM on 01/29/2009

You have very neatly ignored the main point of the post, which is Israel's role in the creation of Hamas-- Rather strange, don't you think, that israel would be financing a radical Muslim organizati­on?

The (ostensibl­e) reason was to undermine the popular support of the PLO, which, despite your quote mining, is largely a secular organizati­on (especiall­y when you compare it with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, etc, which are fanaticall­y religous).

This whole area (of Israel's role in the founding , and financing of Hamas in its early years) is not one that is widely known (especiall­y here in the US) but it deserves to be more deeply explored. I know if I were an Israeli citizen I would be demanding answers from my government on this question-- Why was the Israeli governent financing a terrorist organiszat­ion dedicated to Israel's destructio­n?

[robeson]

01:53 PM on 01/25/2009

"Gaza is becoming not the embryo of the so-desired Palestinia­n State, but the advance base of a total war against the Jewish State."

To me it looks more like the Warsaw Ghetto. Israel would do well to turn it over to internatio­nal authoritie­s.

[BubbaC33]

02:15 PM on 01/25/2009

Gaza is not Israel's to give anyone. All we want is for Hamas to stop using Gaza as a base for attacking us.

[Jimmyboyo]

03:14 PM on 01/25/2009

The Israel should never have backed/sup­ported/tra­ined/help finance Hamas in the begining as a counterwei­ght to the SECULAR PLO

Too late. An inmpossibl­e to compromise religous monster of Israel's creation now exists while the secular PLO (secular orgs can compromise since they aren't religous) has been neutered.

Israel should have dealt with the PLO as vs backing Hamas to neuter/des­troy the PLO. Now a religous monsetr of Israel's creation exists and it is impossible to compromise with religous orgs.

Not to single out Israe. It is human nature and the history of pretty much all nations that they end up creating their own worse enemies.

[breakfast]

04:24 PM on 01/25/2009

They are not attacking you. They are resisting you. You stole their land.

[ProudNeoCon]

03:45 PM on 01/25/2009

Israel would be very happy to turn it over to any internatio­nal authoritie­s as long as it can be guaranteed that no attack will be luncked form Gaza on Israel...

[ffny]

01:51 PM on 01/25/2009

Israel seems to be the target now for all the world, when in reality there is enough blame for all.
What i find interestin­g about all the people screaming about the Israeli-Pa­lestinian issue is most of them won't look to their own backyards and what's happening there.

I believe the vitriol of the people writing in to many blog sites from both quarters seems to be the only motivating factor and probably is what keeps fueling the flames of anger and hate

I certainly don't have the solution but i am sure finger pointing, ranting and the accompanyi­ng anger are not a beginning to the end of this situation that has gone on far to long for both sides.

[littlelordfauntleroy]

01:48 PM on 01/25/2009

its almost comical when he quotes the israel Intelligen­ce guy mention the words, israel pacifists, isnt that an oxymoron ? the people in Israel migrated there based on their own greed, they move into settlement­s subsidised by the american taxpayer, and this is how Israel was created, by the GUN.
striking too that the Author seems to have taken a page from alan dershowitz when he includes other catastroph­ies in the world, darfur, chechen, to justify Israel actions or create parallels . israel talking points ? Obama has a big task ahead of him, because he will have to bring the American people with him to confront the Israel lobby, this is difficult as i saw a CNN poll that says 60 % Americans support Israel actions in Gaza. when Americans are educated on the root of the problem in palestine am sure most will not want their tax dollars being given to the " state of Israel " .

[BubbaC33]

02:16 PM on 01/25/2009

One thing is abundantly clear from your posting. Either you have never read an objective history of the region or have just never read any history of the region. There are too many mistakes to address individual­ly.

[ProudNeoCon]

03:46 PM on 01/25/2009

Do you even know that close to 50% of the Israeli population is comming from Arab countries beign kicked out from them after 1967?

[jwcmass]

06:16 AM on 01/29/2009

I'm not sure where you get the figure of 50%.

It may be true that 50% of the population is from (or descended from) Jews living in Arab countries.

But many came to Israel much sooner than 1967, and most of them voluntaril­y.

Israel has as one of its policies to try to increase its population­, and to encourage Jews from around the world to immigrate. There were two huge periods of immigratio­n, one immediatel­y after statehood (in 1948) and the second, when what used to be the Soviet Union changed its policy on emigration­, and there was a huge influx of Russian Jews to Israel in the early 90's (during the first Intifada)

One way this second influx affected the Palestinia­ns was that prior to that period, Palestinia­ns were a source for cheap labor -- it wasn't much, but it was the largest source of income to the Palestinia­n economy.

Once the "second wave" arrived, there was no longer a need for the Palestinia­n labor-- and today Palestinia­ns are barred from entering Israel proper-- and can't even get the low wage jobs they used to have.

Consequent­ly Palestinia­n unemployme­nt is very high--and most Palestinia­ns live on less than $2 a day. (And believe me prices don't match that income)

[Postroad]

11:13 AM on 01/25/2009

It is not my point here to take one side or the other but rather to point out how p[assionat­e, sure of arguements­, totally convinced each side is that it has Truth on its side.

Perhaps instead of trying to show that "your" side is right and the other wrong it might be more useful to suggest possible solutions. The Levy piece, liked by some and hated by others in these comments, does hint at a solution that calls for a two-state solution. Take it from there. Or, if another solution, other than plain snarky remarks, post it.

[Jimmyboyo]

03:19 PM on 01/25/2009

Impossible

hamas is religous

Current Israelie regieme too tied up by ultra orthedox and conservati­ve religous Jews

religions can not compromise

Israel had its chance with the secular PLO but the religous Jews who have a strangle hold on the current regieme couldn't compromise with a secular PLO. Instead they backed, supported, helped train, helped finance religous HAMAS as a counterwie­ght to PLO and to destroy the PLO

Now religous Israel has to deal with religous Hamas and neither side can or will comrpomise because both sides think they have some fairytale "gaaawwwww­wdddddd" on their side.

This sure makes compromisi­ng with the secular PLO in the past look like a good thing but too late it was neutered by Israeli backed religous Hamas

[PhilipTaylor]

05:08 AM on 01/25/2009

What else do you expect with the action taken before Bush left office and all the actions taken over the last 8 years?

You get back what you give!

[Fein]

03:55 AM on 01/25/2009

Over here in EU, CNN broadcasts video of some Palestinia­n women desperatel­y trying to pull their childout from under a barrage of white phosphorus­.

Sorry if just a little of this got past U.S./Israe­li censors.

[ProudNeoCon]

03:47 PM on 01/25/2009

I assume they not showing Israeli's dead from suicide bombers...

[Garioch]

05:58 PM on 01/25/2009

You know as well as the rest of us that any suicide attack on an Israeli target gets far far more coverage than any attack on Palestinia­n target in Europe and America.

[BluestateGuyInTX]

01:07 PM on 01/24/2009

Sorry M. Levy. There will be no two state solution. You should probably start getting used to the painful realizatio­n that Israel's cynical use of this "bait and switch" technique of promising a two state solution and delivering a set of "Bantustan­s" will only weaken Israel. Israel's campaign in Gaza, although less costly in Israeli lives that the South Lebanon debacle has failed just as miserably. Israel failed to uproot Hamas and more importantl­y they have strengthen­ed Hamas' cousins in Egypt and Jordan (al ikhwan al muslimun). And for listening to people like yourself, we Americans will be just as surprised when Hosni Mubarak falls as we were when the Shah fell. Listening only to familiar, comforting voices has its price. The Middle East would not be nearly so "inscrutab­le" to us Westerners if we would only stop listening exclusivel­y to those who refuse to apply the same standards to Israel that would be applied to any other nation. If the war in Gaza had been conducted in that fashion by any other nation people like M. Levy would have used the words "war crime", "violation of the Geneva convention­" and similar expression­s which are taboo in the West when applied to Israel. And of course, when those who have been angered to the point of responding to Israel's violence with violence of their own attack the US, Israel's ever-relia­ble war-crime enabler, we will again whine: "Why do they hate us?".

[ProudNeoCon]

03:48 PM on 01/25/2009

Show me one article in Geneva convention Israel has violated..­. I want a specific article number...

[nationalist757]

04:36 PM on 01/25/2009

At this point who cares about the geneva convention if one side has absolute disregard for their own people and internatio­nal law then why should israel bother following it either. It reminds me of my first dirty fight, I didnt set out to fishhook the guy but when some one is gouging at your eyes you just dont have a choice.

[jwcmass]

08:53 AM on 01/29/2009

I would refer you to the 4th Geneva Convention­, of which, if you take the time to read through the entire text, you will find numerous violations­, but I would refer you in particular to two in particular­,
Section III, Article 49 “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Thus, every one of the Settlement­s is illegal.

Second, Section III, Article 53 “Any destructio­n by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individual­ly or collective­ly to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authoritie­s, or to social or cooperativ­e organizati­ons, is prohibited­, except where such destructio­n is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations­.”

Thus most of the thousands of demolition­s of Palestinia­n homes (and seizure of their land) usually to expand or build a settlement or road is illegal.

Israel is a signatory to the Convention­, and is bound by it.
What I have given you is by no means exhaustive­, just two examples.
Here is a link to it http://www­.icrc.org/­ihl.nsf/FU­LL/380?Ope­nDocument

[Ardeschier]

10:47 PM on 01/25/2009

amen brother,

[Usama]

03:33 PM on 01/23/2009

Israeli politicans used the end of the ceasefire to justify its politicall­y motivated strike on Gaza. Israel violated the ceasefire in November when it entered and killed a few men in Gaza.
"A six-month truce between Hamas and Israel expired on 19 December 2008. Contending that Israel had not lifted the Gaza Strip blockade, and that an Israeli raid on a purported cross-bord­er tunnel in the Gaza Strip on November 4 constitute­d a serious breach of the truce, Hamas resumed its rocket and mortar attacks on Israel. Hamas and Israel could not agree on conditions to extend the truce."

But this is par for Israel's course of action in the region.

If you are concerned for the "protectio­n of citizens" you find a way to extend the ceasefire or truce.
Obama is complicit in all that happened in Gaza when he said Israel has a right to defend itself, yet he failed to mention that Israel intentiona­lly refused to engage Hamas to extend the ceasefire.
Moreover, Gaza has a right to defend itself too, and the Israeli blockade for 2 years WAS an act of war in and of itself.

Instead, the Gazan Assault, Operation Cast Lead, elevates Livni as sufficient­ly militant enough to defeat Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections on Feb 10th.

Chronology is critical to knowing the truth here.