Gen-Next: Sowing the Dragon's Teeth in Gaza
by C. L. Cook
 Despite serial misinformation campaigns by first Israel, then its defenders in the western corporate and State media, millions around the world are witnessing what it means to be a supporter of the new state of affairs throughout the middle east. It means: countenancing the random destruction of lives in their thousands; abandoning the principle of innocence, and; surrendering regret upon the steely altar of a scorched-earth realpolitik that takes no prisoners.
But above all, as witnessed over Christmas week, it means supporting the actions of the Israeli war machine, as we outside are told the majority of Israel's citizens do, (Arab-Israeli citizens presumably excluded the poll) and embracing lies as truth, shadow as light, black as white. This the media, the networks and FOX has proven ever willing to do, but State broadcasters in Britain, Canada, and Australia too unquestioningly take the Israeli Defence Force line and in turn propagate its message to their respective home viewers.
Lies My Broadcaster Told Me
Foremost of the misrepresentations being trotted out as truth concerns the context of the high-tech turkey shoot the IDF visited in the final days of 2008 upon the heads of the captive civilian population of Gaza. Responding to the venerable British Broadcast Corporation's coverage of the disaster, William Bowles over at Creative - i notes the inherent contradictions in the Beeb's framing of the issue. Bowles points out the following bit of mischief, fabricated by the BBC news staff in London:
"[N]ote that the BBC also refers to the democratically elected government as one "which has ruled Gaza since 2007." Later in the piece we read: "Analysts said Saturday was the single deadliest day in Gaza since Israel's occupation of the territory in 1967, although no independent confirmation is available of the numbers killed.""
Easily missed by viewers of the sound bite reportage now passed off as journalism by the BBC is a subtle shifting of meaning, accomplished through the manipulation of the perception of just who is "responsible" for Gaza. Yes, Gaza has a duly elected government. Yes, that government is Hamas. But, does Hamas "rule" Gaza? It's a significant point when assessing culpability.
According to my dog-eared Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary, to rule means:
1. Controlling power, or its possession and exercise; government; dominion; authority. 2. To influence greatly; to dominate. 3. To decide or determine judicially or authoritatively. 4. To restrain; keep in check: Rule your temper.
Is Hamas the controlling power in Gaza? Since Israel's "withdrawal" from the Gaza Strip in 2005, construction of a concrete and razor wire curtain surrounding the Strip has carried on apace. Israel controls the airspace, and all sea and land access to the Strip. It is now impossible for Hamas to either import or export goods without Israeli permission. Impossible that is either above ground or in broad daylight. Does this sound like a matrix of control?
The underground economy in Gaza is literally underground. As in every jurisdiction, what happens out of the daylight of the open market place is rarely subject to government purvey. The recent bombing by the IDF of supposed tunnels supplying the necessities of the people is, if Israel's claims are to be believed, meant to stop military hardware and materiel entering Gaza. Israel too has a thriving underground economy and a criminal class that works without the (necessary) complicity of the government. Is Israel willing to accept the crimes of the extensive criminal underworld operating within Israel as its own? Not likely; but this is exactly what Israel's spokespersons would have the world expect of Hamas. Indeed, the party elected by popular vote throughout remnant Palestine, before being ousted to its current Gazan enclave, bears responsibility for some of the attacks against Jewish settlements across the concertina wire, but they are not in control, and cannot control, all of what emanates from there.
It may be convenient for Israel's officials to point the finger of responsibility for rocket-fire coming from Gaza strictly at Hamas, but this ignores the facts on the ground. The IDF is fully aware of the decentralized nature of resistance to the Israeli occupation and encirclement of Gaza and the West Bank. Yes, Hamas does control some of the agents firing missiles into Israeli-claimed territory, but Hamas does not have the power to end the siege that is starving the population and depriving them of medicines, fuel, and the materials needed to rebuild a decrepit and shot up infrastructure. Hamas does not have the power to "influence greatly and dominate" Israel's aggression, or restrain its actions. Hamas may be able to "rule its temper," but it certainly cannot effect the popular rage inspired by IDF actions, nor can it slow Israel's timetable for a "solution," as IDF spokesperson Miri Regev put it, to Israel's Palestinian problem. Neither can they end, as the BBC reminds, "an occupation Israel has maintained since 1967," an occupation "ended" in 2005, only to transmogrify into a total blockade.
Ceasefire: A Breaking of Media Faith
Israel's main claim for the necessity of its lethal attacks against Gaza is Hamas' failure to renew a six month-old ceasefire it had itself initiated. This is the line the western press, in the first days of Israel's blitzkrieg, dutifully followed. As the extent of the horror wreaked upon the heads of hapless Palestinian women and children became apparent, (despite the continuance of Israel's barring of press access to Gaza) that line softened somewhat; but the premise of broken promises was not questioned. In fact, as Chris Floyd of Empire Burlesque points out, the "Shock and Awe" attack against Gaza's civic infrastructure was planned before the most recent Hamas ceasefire was even declared:
"Papers in Israel -- in Israel, but not the United States -- are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended -- it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect. Indeed, the cease-fire was part of the military plan to decimate the civilian areas of Gaza; it was a hoax, a scam, a deliberate feint to buy time for military preparations -- precisely the same strategy followed by the Bush Regime (and its bipartisan Establishment supporters) in "going to the UN" to seek a "peaceful solution" to the "Iraqi crisis" -- when the invasion was already in the works."
Floyd cites Ha'aretz, one of Israel's most prominent daily papers, which says in its piece, 'Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about:'
"Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning. [T]he disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.
Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well [...] The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops....
While Barak was working out the final details with the officers responsible for the operation, Livni went to Cairo to inform Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, that Israel had decided to strike at Hamas. In parallel, Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday - one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued.
"Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday," one defense official said, "but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday."
Floyd concludes:
"Not only did this deception lead Hamas to send its officials back to work -- it also meant that there was no general warning to the masses of civilians packed like sardines into Gaza's hellish confines. It meant that civilian casualties would be maximized -- especially when the initial assault was launched in the middle of the day, with thousands of schoolchildren out at their lesson."
While variations on the Israeli theme are now beginning to appear in western "mainstream" media, maybe due to squeamishness after remotely witnessing the appalling civilian casualties occurring in Gaza, reporters like Chris Floyd and others outside the State/corporate media cloister are yet alone in providing the correct context for Israel's false claims of self-defense due to Hamas duplicity, or its unwillingness to enter into a ceasefire agreement. Adam Sheets, published at Creative - i features a damning disputation.
Despite the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza (and Israel), the primary media meme, Israel's right to resist attack remains the essential explanation of events, while Gazan's right to resist occupation, whether stated as such or not, is buried. In a recent interview I conducted with Canadian freelance photojournalist, Jon Elmer, who has lived in and reported from Occupied Palestine, he made a poignant observation regarding the changing dynamics of multi-generational occupation and what he terms as "imperial policing." In referring to the recently announced 'The Seer Shoots' automated machine-gun posts mounted on the walls surrounding Gaza, Elmer says:
"That's what you get when you don't challenge the fundamental premise of the ghettos themselves. You move to how to secure oneself as the administrator of the ghettos, and that's what Israel has moved to. It's become a fait accompli that Israel is ghettoizing the Palestinian population and that's going to be a semi-permanent state of affairs, in that they're developing technology to deal with the fact that the next wave of violence, once you sealed people in with eight meter high concrete walls, is for them to attempt to throw projectiles out of those ghettos, which of course is what happens in Gaza, which has been ghettoized for more than twenty years, (which it's worth noting) and not simply the last year we've heard about it in the news."
Taking It Home
In responding to the situation as it unfolded, an American spokesperson posited a hypothetical question, saying roughly: "How would Americans in New York, or Texas respond if rockets were being fired at them from Canada or Mexico?" It's a specious argument on a couple of grounds. Firstly, as Dennis Rahkonen points out in the Online Journal, were the Canadians or Mexicans subjected to a six decades-long occupation and embargo campaign America's response to the question may be tempered. But, more importantly, what is not mentioned in regards to Israel's self-justification for raining missiles and bombs upon the heads of Gaza's citizenry, that being the source of rockets fired into Israeli-claimed territory, is the fact similar bombing and rocket attacks occurred in the West Bank, where from no rockets come. Targeted assassinations too occur in West Bank towns and cities, and this has happened not only since the ceasefire's expiration date but before it too.
In an ominous opening note to the new year, Nizar Rayyan is killed in a bombing that epitomizes what we all witnessed in the last week of 2008. Rayyan is a high-ranking member of the Hamas government. He has called for revenge in the form of suicide bombings, and presumably all the other means of resistance we see in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan. Already to his survivors, the call comes from a martyr. How much easier it will be to recruit those vest wearers when they consider the manner of Nizar Rayyan's death: Killed in his bed by a smart bomb/missile, along with his wives and four of his children. Included in the coroner's report of this case is the "collateral" death of 12 others living in the same apartment building. That makes a ratio of 18:1, eighteen killed so that Israel might reach its target. Eighteen mourned by their friends and relatives whose anger will turn to the authors of their misery.
William Bowles presumably received a lot of response from his initial assessment of the BBC's credibility gap concerning the horrors unfolding over Christmas in Gaza, and Bowles answers:
"I also have an admission to make about the last piece I wrote ‘No place to run, no place to hide’, I just picked the very first BBC piece on the destruction of Gaza that I came across. It wasn’t difficult, believe me, any person with the right approach to life and a reasonable command of the English language could do it.
And the clowns who write that garbage for the BBC actually think they’re smarter than I am, and you too, dear reader. Well maybe they are. But how do they sleep at night, like a baby (but not one in Gaza I’ll bet)?"
Indeed, and those babes, should they survive, will be borne to the breasts of widowed mothers, hearing the stories of Israel's rape of Gaza, Christmastime 2008.
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