It is difficult today to find reports on the polarizing Palestinian/Israeli issue unladed of hyperbole; debating the conflict hardly ever occurs without damaging irrational emotional eruptions. It is analogous to navigating a minefield. Facts have been doctored; histories rewritten; irreparable mistakes of strategic heft made by not just the Palestinian and Israeli politicians, but the US and Arab governments as well. In the midst of this whirlpool of arguments and counterarguments, facts and fallacies, through the smoke screen of political folderol, there seems to be a consensus emerging: Palestinian civilians are being exterminated on a daily basis; their children and babies are dying from bombs, diseases, malnutrition, and forced illiteracy; their minds are being stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey with jaundiced ideologies; their despondent fathers are ripe for the picking by radical fringes and political dogmatists.

Who is to blame?

Most are quick to point the finger at the Israeli government. They are, after all, still pounding the Gazan population with state-of-the-art “bunker buster” high-precision GBU-39 missiles freshly acquired from the US government. The missiles, developed by a Boeing subsidiary and which carry more wallop than the heavier and less accurate bombs used against Hezbollah in 2006, reportedly penetrated at least 35 inches of steel-reinforced concrete in US tests. Israel is testing them on Gazans not so much because their houses are 35 inches steel-reinforced concrete thick, but because their minds are impervious to the idea that democratically electing a religiously radical group opposed to the existence of the Israeli state is unacceptable.

Some analysts believe the Islamic Resistance Movement – Harakat Al Mukawama Al Islamiya (HAMAS), an offshoot of the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdelaziz Al-Rantisi, and Mohammed Taha, to counter-balance the nationalistic Harakat Al-Tahrir Al-Watani Al-Falastini (Fatah). Fatah leadership believes the establishment of Hamas was not without the help of the Egyptian Mokhabarat and the Israeli Mossad. The Islamic organization quickly ingratiated itself with the destitute Palestinians by engaging in extensive social programs which a corrupt and fractured Palestinian Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat and saturated by Fatah bureaucrats whose allegiance was shady lacked. While Fatah was funded by the Madrid Quartet, the sources of Hamas funds remain untracked.

In the January 25, 2006 parliamentary election, an Iranian supported Hamas won the majority in the Palestinian parliament and effectively took control of all cabinet positions while Fatah was relegated to the opposition.

I observed the Palestinian Parliamentary election of 2006 with the same skepticism through which I look at all elections in the Arab World. The keystone of a democratic election is access to viable political options. The Palestinians’ choices were limited: an aging Fatah party that has done nothing but exacerbate the issue since its inception in 1954; a Hamas that is radical and undemocratic, but that has filled a social services void since 1987; Al Mustaqbal Party, a splinter group of Fatah formed on December 14, 2005, and whose founder and leader, Marwan Al-Barghouti, is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail. How can we possibly talk of a democratic election within a tumultuous society whose psyche is ravaged by war, a society collectively enduring an upheaval caused by a chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome?

Hamas’ often inaccurate mortar and Fajr-3 rocket volleys into Israel cannot possibly be misconstrued as resistance. Despite their 45 kilometer range allowing it to reach Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, and even the outskirts of Beersheba, the Iranian-made third generation Katyusha rockets  yield low casualty rates and cause no more damage than a stable fly on a Shire horse. Hamas’ irrational military actions have nothing more than a symbolic value. Militarily, they require minimal containment from Israel; strategically, they are inconsequential to it.

The disparity between the two forces is evident and a comparison would be redundant; Israel’s retaliation is dramatically disproportionate and has historically being consistently so. Hamas is well aware the Mossad and Aman, the Israeli Directorate of Military Intelligence, know every nook and cranny of the Gaza Strip. Thanks mostly to their Palestinian informants, the Israelis have successfully been collecting on the locations of Hamas’ weapons caches, troop garrisons, and the political and military leadership residences and safe houses; they have been monitoring their communications and garroting their supply lines. Their objective, according to Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, is to topple Hamas. Israel’s aversion to Hamas is shared by some neighboring Arab nations such as Jordan and Egypt.

International reactions to Israel’s aggression varied in intensity and substance. Hosni Mubarak, as he was meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, sought to extend the truce between Israel and Hamas and lodged a formal complaint with Israel’s ambassador. But he also closed the border with Gaza blocking the only exit to safety. While anti-Israel demonstrations broke out in all the Arab capitals, the pro-US Arab governments scrambled to mount an adequate political response. Morocco’s government for instance, in order not to alienate itself from the uproar permeating the Arab street, cancelled a previously scheduled visit by Livni, while the Jordanian Foreign Minister met with her in Washington. As Israel’s attack on Gaza started, Libya welcomed Gene Cretz, a career US diplomat whose previous postings included Tel Aviv to Tripoli as the first US Ambassador to be posted in Libya in three decades. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who recently stated that the Bush administration’s efforts have laid a strong foundation upon which a lasting peace between the Palestinian and Israeli governments could flourish, condemned Hamas’s attacks on Israel and called for a “durable and sustainable” truce, but no immediate cease-fire. The Arab League held an inconsequential urgent meeting. The UN Security Council strongly condemned Israel’s excessive use of military force, but remains shackled by the US veto.

The support the US is providing to the Israeli operation is staggering. In addition to the unconditional veto and the “bunker buster’ missiles, the Pentagon deployed 120 US military personnel to Israel from EUCOM to provide weapon systems technical support; it is also providing Israel with 28,000 light anti-tank (LAW) tube launchers for its land forces and helping upgrade its defense forces’ Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party publically condemned the attack, but relish Israel’s aggression on a 20060627hamasied04rival political party they would like to see disappear.

Hamas has no compunction using the civilian population as shields to their weapons caches and leadership and launching their mortars and missiles from heavily populated areas such as the Jabaliya well aware that Israeli anti-battery radars will lock on the point of origin of the launch and engage with suppressive anti-battery fire.

Undoubtedly, Israel is slaughtering the Palestinians, but Hamas is walking them to the slaughter house. The UN condamns; the US vetoes; the Iranians arm; the Arab governments shake Israeli hands in the back alleys of international politics while at home they deflect from their defectiveness by indulging their citizens to demonstrate against Israel - a healthy stress reliever; the Islamists collect donations to build more mosques in Gaza and recruit more suicide bombers; Palestinian children die.

Whose blame?

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