GAZA RECONSTRUCTION

There is little doubt about the necessity for reconstruction in Gaza, as there was little question as to the similar need in Lebanon, following a similarly monstrous Israeli campaign of murder and destruction.

In the absence of legal accountability for murder and destruction, the proceeding take on an aspect of the theatre of the absurd. National represetatives are gathered at Sharm el-Sheikh, where Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak asked them to give generously, while saying nothing would compensate for the loss of life.

As Al Jazeera reports:

It remains unclear though how the planned reconstruction of Gaza will be undertaken. The territory is controlled by Hamas and Israel has said it will refuse to approve projects that could benefit the group.

“We definitely don’t want to see the goodwill of the international community exploited by Hamas and serve Hamas’s extremist purposes,” Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said.

Hamas took full control of Gaza in June 2007 after driving out security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and leader of the rival Fatah group.

Hamas, which has not been invited to the conference in Egypt and is labelled a “terrorist” group by the US and the EU, has prepared its own reconstruction plan.

“We are welcoming anyone who wants to reconstruct Gaza, but without any political terms on Hamas or on the Palestinian people,” Osama Hamdan, a Beirut-based Hamas official, told Al Jazeera.

Israel’s blockade of the territory continues to prevent supplies, including construction materials, from crossing into Gaza.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, called the siege “intolerable” and said that border crossings into Gaza must be reopened to allow aid into the devastated territory.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) says $2.8bn is needed to rebuild Gaza.

A total of $2.25bn has already been pledged by Saudi Arabia ($1bn), Qatar ($250m), Algeria ($100m) and the US ($900m).

The US says its financial assistance cannot be channelled through Gaza’s Hamas-run government.

Israel has barred entry of material which it says may have military use, such as cement and steel rods.

“The situation at the border crossings is intolerable. Aid workers do not have access. Essential commodities cannot get in,” he told donors. “Our first and indispensable goal is to open crossings.”

Marc Gopin, from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, told Al Jazeera there was “no real addressing of the political fallout in the long run”.

“They can’t even get in humanitarian aid at this point because the [Israeli] blockade is so severe,” he said.

Abbas said that without a political settlement to the conflict any aid would be insufficient to meet Gazans needs.

“We appreciate your presence and the financial, economic and technical support that you are giving to the Palestinian people but we insist on the pressing need to achieve substantial progress towards a just settlement,” he said.

The Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip ended after Israel called a halt to the fighting on January 18. Hamas announced its own ceasefire the following day.

More than 1,300 Palestinians, including women and children, died during the war on Gaza, which Israel launched with the stated aim of preventing rocket fire from fighters based in the coastal territory.

At least 13 Israelis, three of them civilians, were also killed.

However, rocket fire has continued and Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, on Sunday vowed a “painful” response if the attacks on southern Israel did not stop.

How does a little country like Israel, albeit nuclear-armed, get away without sanctions of any kind? Why is violence so acceptable in international relations, when quite rightly it is unacceptable in domestic affairs? The question ultimately is not who acted rightly or wrongly in a particular situation, but the standard by which that behavior is to be judged, and the accountability that attaches to that behavior.

In the absence of sanction and reparation for wrong, there is a strong chance that a pretext will be found for the same thing to reoccur. In this case the donors might well have second thoughts.

Allowing for different historical contexts, was the murder of the Nazis in Germany issued to various people, principally those with Jewish beliefs, worse than what was done to the mostly Muslim and Christian Palestinians? Was it more premeditated? Was it less cruel in its execution? Was it not based on the same distorted social dynamic induced by fear?

The challenge, and the necessity, is to create the conditions for peace, which truth and justice are inherently essential to the outcome.

In the past, it is people of the Jewish faith, who have been on the leading edge of pursuing nature justice for other minorities. The lived experience cannot be matched. Now Israel has created a Jewish majority, that history seems to have been lost. If so, it tells us much about human nature, that is, that experience counts for more than principles. The other observation is that despite superficial differences people are remarkably alike in general.

I suspect the founders of Israel did not have this idea in mind, although as we know from the propaganda about ‘anti-semitism’, Israel is a creation of European history rather than a creation of the Middle East. Therefore, paradoxically and tragically, Israel is a product of imperialism – and that is the way it behaves.

ELSEWHERE:

Peter Beaumont in The Observer last Sunday, otherwise The Guardian, reports that Hamas had tried to talk to the Israeli PM through a member of his family.

Still, the Israeli Government, if the reports were true, had snipers fire at protesters at the crossing points, just to prove how ruthless they can be, and how frightened they are of nonviolence. There are other instances of the same story, yet Israel escapes condemnation by the corporate mass media. Why is that?

Sometimes stories are printed, as for example in The Independent. Killing people in person is always more traumatic than from afar, or on high (as befits gods).

Postscript:

In regard to these matters, it is important to remember groups of people are composed of individuals, and we should not dehumanize them, but believe in their human capacities.

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