Conflicto palestino-israelí (Continuación)

MundoOriente Próximo,

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Over the last 12 days, Israel has inflicted a bloodbath on the Gaza Strip that matches the darkest days of the Iraq war. Backed to the hilt by the US author of that catastrophe, it has killed more than 650 people in less than a fortnight, including at least 200 children, and wounded three thousand. Yesterday, after killing 50 civilians in UN schools sheltering refugees - "C'est la guerre", the Israeli minister Meir Shitreet told the BBC when asked about the atrocities - the Israeli government agreed a three-hour daily lull in the carnage for "humanitarian purposes", as diplomatic manoeuvring intensified over a possible ceasefire deal.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Suppose Israel manages to prevent its campaign in Gaza from turning into a repeat of its disastrous war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Suppose the army does not get bogged down fighting in the narrow streets of Gaza’s refugee camps and international outrage at the spiraling death toll does not force it to pull out with rockets still falling on Israeli towns. Suppose no soldiers are taken hostage and Hamas suffers enough damage to force it to accept a cease-fire on Israel’s terms. Then what?

Israeli leaders say often that the result will be to “re-establish deterrence” against Hamas, and by extension against Hezbollah and others.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Nearly everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.

THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The spectacle of Merkava tanks rumbling into the Gaza Strip last weekend served as complete proof that the massive Israeli onslaught from the air, killing hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children, utterly failed in its objective of crippling Hamas. I simply do not believe Ehud Barak's claim that Israel always planned a ground invasion as a necessary second stage of the offensive against Hamas. Those tanks so conspicuously parked along the borders of the Gaza Strip were simply intended to put extra psychological pressure on Hamas. Now they have been deployed in earnest - and the invaders have taken casualties.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Dado que no soy un experto militar, me abstendré de juzgar si los bombardeos israelíes de Gaza habrían podido ser más precisos y menos mortíferos.

Dado que, desde hace décadas, jamás pude distinguir entre buenos y malos muertos o, como decía Albert Camus, entre «víctimas sospechosas» y «verdugos privilegiados», también yo me siento horrorizado antes las imágenes de los niños palestinos asesinados.

Dicho esto y teniendo además en cuenta que un viento de locura parece haberse instalado en algunos medios de comunicación, una vez más y como siempre cuando se trata de Israel, me gustaría recordar algunos hechos:

1. Ningún gobierno del mundo, ningún otro país más que este vilipendiado Israel, arrastrado por el fango y demonizado, habría tolerado ver miles de obuses caer, durante años, sobre sus ciudades.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

En estos días estamos viendo cómo se establecen numerosas analogías entre el ataque que está llevando a cabo Israel contra Hamás en Gaza y la guerra de 2006 entre Israel y Hezbolá en Líbano. He aquí, a mi juicio, las más importantes.

La primera analogía tiene que ver con los orígenes: Hamás y Hezbolá no existieron hasta 1982, aproximadamente. Para entender su nacimiento y su fortalecimiento es preciso verlos, en gran medida, como una respuesta contra las políticas israelíes de ocupación y colonización en Palestina y Líbano, además de otras razones de orden secundario.

Hamás y Hezbolá son los hijastros ideológicos del Partido del Likud y especialmente de Ariel Sharon, cuya estrategia de recurrir a la violencia, el racismo y la colonización como principales instrumentos para ocuparse de las poblaciones árabes ocupadas acabó engendrando una voluntad de resistencia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

For 18 months my people in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated inside the world's biggest prison, sealed off from land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied even medication for our sick. After the slow death policy came the bombardment. In this most densely populated of places, nothing has been spared Israel's warplanes, from government buildings to homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and markets. More than 540 have been killed and thousands permanently maimed. A third are women and children. Whole families have been massacred, some while they slept.

This river of blood is being shed under lies and false pretexts.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The signing of the Oslo agreements between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993 raised hopes for peace on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border. Tens of thousands of Palestinians found work in Israel. Along with their Israeli neighbours, mostly farmers who have cultivated fields adjacent to the border, a shared dream of peace and prosperity was woven.

In those days I served as mayor of the regional council that stretches along the Gaza-Israeli border. The optimism of the time provided me and my Palestinian neighbours with an opportunity to develop a multifaceted relationship: hundreds of young Gazans studied in our academic college; women's organisations joined forces in summer camps for Israeli and Palestinian children; Israeli environmental experts assisted the mayor of Dir el-Balakh in the strip in dealing with sewage flowing into the sea; and, with the help of European countries, a large plant was designed to provide purified water for agriculture on both sides of the border.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

For months - years even - the historical twinning that some campaigners have chosen for the situation in Gaza has been with the Warsaw ghetto. There'll probably be a sign up soon, because in the past week Ken Livingstone, the activist-musician Brian Eno and George Galloway have all made the comparison.

“Gaza is a ghetto,” said Mr Livingstone, "in exactly the same way that the Warsaw Ghetto was, and people are trapped in it”; while Eno predicted: “They [the Israelis] will continue to create a Warsaw Ghetto in the Middle East.” The less-restrained Mr Galloway pronounced: “Those murdering them [the occupants of Gaza] are the equivalent of those who murdered the Jews in Warsaw in 1942.”…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Ante un conflicto, la opinión se divide entre los incondicionales, que ya han decidido quién tiene y quién no tiene razón, y los circunspectos, que consideran ésta o aquella acción como oportuna o inoportuna en función de las circunstancias, sin perjuicio de mantener cierta reserva hasta estar más informados.

El enfrentamiento en Gaza, por sangriento y terrible que sea, deja asomar, sin embargo, una luz de esperanza que las imágenes dramáticas muchas veces ocultan. Por primera vez en el conflicto de Oriente Próximo, el fanatismo de los incondicionales parece minoritario. El debate entre los israelíes (¿es el momento?, ¿hasta dónde?, ¿hasta cuándo?)…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Las operaciones militares aéreas lanzadas por Israel contra Hamas en la franja de Gaza han causado ya - una vez iniciada la operación terrestre-cientos de muertos y un número impresionante de heridos del lado palestino. El balance, el más sangriento en un día desde 1967, no podrá más que agravarse. Es ya el momento de hacer un primer balance.

¿Qué espera Israel? Oficialmente, el final del lanzamiento de cohetes sobre su territorio desde Gaza. Este objetivo se hubiera podido haber alcanzado perfectamente levantando el bloqueo sobre Gaza, condición que Hamas ponía para el mantenimiento del alto el fuego. Tel Aviv no ha querido realizar este gesto que hubiera supuesto una victoria para Hamas.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

War in the Gaza Strip demonstrates yet again that the current governance paradigm for the Palestinian people has failed. Terrorists financed and supplied by Iran control Gaza; the Palestinian Authority is broken, probably irretrievably; and economic development is stalled in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians are suffering the consequences of regional power struggles played out through them as surrogates.

Israel isn't a happy place, either. It endures opprobrium from the world's High-Minded for defending itself from terrorism yet still finds itself subjected to terrorist attacks from Hamas and terrorists based in Syria and Lebanon. Israel's domestic politics are increasingly muddled, and its way forward obscure.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

La violencia es simple, pero no proporcionará seguridad a Israel. La fuerza militar bruta, desproporcionada, generadora de odio, frustración, humillación, acabará por colocar a Israel -y a buena parte de la comunidad internacional- en situación de máxima inseguridad.

Edward Said -el más prestigioso intelectual palestino- escribió en 2002 que "la seguridad israelí es un animal de fábula, una especie de unicornio. Se la persigue sin alcanzarla jamás, pero constituye el objetivo eterno de cualquier acción futura".

De ética y de sentido común y político conviene hablar. ¿Qué persigue Israel con acciones que arrasan una ciudad, masacran a civiles y a policías encargados de mantener la seguridad (aunque no sea la del unicornio) y, de paso, liquidan a dirigentes y militantes de Hamás?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Yesterday morning, I hurried up to the rooftop of my home to catch a glimpse of the sun rising. Columns of black smoke stretched sideways over Gaza's horizon, eerily symbolising how Israel's ground assault has already inflicted more indiscriminate suffering on ordinary people.

I reflected how the fireball resulting from utter political failure among Palestinians, within Israel and, to an extent, internationally, has landed in the laps of Gaza's civilians. Within seconds, the deep and breathtaking sound of shelling from the sea forced me back downstairs.

By mid-morning on Sunday, about 12 hours into the incursion, Israeli troops were said to have reached the outskirts of Jabalia - a city and a refugee camp with a combined population of 200,000 - with Apache helicopters firing high-calibre rounds into the camp alongside the incoming artillery fire.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

No hay duda -ninguna- de que el ataque de Israel a Hamas en Gaza está justificado. Ninguna nación puede tolerar que una parte de su población viva bajo las condiciones de los bombardeos -pendientes de las sirenas, durmiendo en refugios y a una distancia de la muerte de tan solo la aleatoriedad del vuelo de un misil Qassam-. Y ningún grupo como Hamas puede desentenderse de las leyes de soberanía, de la moralidad y de la civilización, que, como poco, prohíben las tentativas rutinarias de homicidio del vecino.

La respuesta de Israel ha sido calificada por muchos de «desproporcionada», lo cual evidencia la malinterpretación del significado de proporción.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Ninguna nación sobre la Tierra aceptaría ser bombardeada permanentemente desde un territorio vecino y permanecer impasible. La actuación de castigo israelí contra Hamás en Gaza no debería ser, pues, una sorpresa. Lo verdaderamente sorprendente es que no hubiera sucedido mucho antes. Israel ha aguantado lo inaguantable: más de cuatro mil cohetes palestinos que si no han causado más muertes es en buena medida debido al inmenso esfuerzo realizado en la protección pasiva -en forma de bunkers- de las poblaciones del sur de Israel. Exigir un alto en sus operaciones militares a Israel es una inmoralidad así como una gravísimo error estratégico.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Ahora, tras el duro golpe infligido por Israel en la Franja de Gaza, nos convendría detenernos y dirigirnos a los jefes de Hamás para decirles: "Hasta el sábado, Israel se ha contenido ante el lanzamiento de miles de cohetes Kassam desde la Franja de Gaza. Ahora sabéis lo dura que puede ser nuestra reacción. Para no añadir más duelo y destrucción, tenemos intención de proclamar un alto el fuego unilateral y total durante las próximas 48 horas. Aunque sigáis disparando contra Israel, no reaccionaremos, no reanudaremos las hostilidades".

"Apretaremos los dientes, como hicimos durante la última época, y no nos dejaremos arrastrar a una reacción de fuerza.…  Seguir leyendo »

, MundoOriente Próximo

Now, after the heavy blow that Israel has dealt to the Gaza Strip, we would do best to halt, turn to the leaders of Hamas and tell them: Until last Saturday, we restrained ourselves in responding to the thousands of Qassam rockets fired at us. Now you know how severe the retaliation can be. So as not to add to the death and destruction that has already taken place, we intend, unilaterally and absolutely, to hold our fire for the next 48 hours.

Even if you continue to fire on Israel, we will not respond by resuming combat. We will grit our teeth, just as we did in the days and months before our attack.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

-- Associated Press, Dec. 27

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.…  Seguir leyendo »