A better way for Gaza than military attacks

[DogPoundPup]

Friday, 9 January 2009, 3:00 pm
Press Release: Progressive Party

A better way for Gaza than military attacks.

The crisis in the Gaza strip should be resolved through international law and effective international institutions, Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.

But he says international institutions like the UN aren’t proving effective in these situations - and New Zealand should be a strong voice in support of improving them.

“Rockets and military attacks haven’t solved a hundred years of dispute over Israel and Palestine, and they won’t in the future.

“Military attacks cannot be justified before every diplomatic alternative is exhausted. Therefore Israel should have a better alternative available to it than military assaults in the face of Hamas’ rocket attacks and the existential threat it faces from fanatics all around it.

“The tactics of Hamas - and Hizbollah in Lebanon, along with governments supporting them - make it more important for Israel not to be trapped into a cycle of escalating injustice. Every cruel government in history claims the end justify the means, but you can justify anything like that.

“No amount of Israeli military attacks will destroy Hamas, nor achieve the aim of silencing the Arab voices that want Israel wiped off the map.

“The alternative to military action is international institutions strong enough to uphold international law, guarantee Israel’s survival and provide a response better than military attacks that kill suffering civilians in Gaza who are deliberately being put in harm’s way.

“There is global cynicism about the ability of institutions like the UN to make a difference, and about the power of international law to provide an humane solution. Because they are largely unaccountable for results, their results are not very good.

“Yet as a very small state New Zealand is utterly dependent on international law and effective international bodies - and we have recognised that since we helped establish the UN. We should now be strengthening our efforts to make the United Nations more effective and more responsive.

“Vacuous statements of concern crafted from weak diplomatic compromise are not enough,” Jim Anderton said.


ENDS
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0901/S00023.htm

[madeline_con]

1. Why are Hamas' actions labeled "fanatic" but Israel can

do no wrong? Wake up! "Civilians in Gaza are not "deliberately being put in harm’s way". Is there a huge open area where Hamas can set up for battle? The idea that they would be anywhere BUT amid the civilian population is absurd. where else are they supposed to go?

spell edit

[The Magistrate]

2. What They Ought To Do, Ma'am, Is Stop Fighting

It serves no good purpose, and does not advance the satisfaction of the legitimate aspirations of the people of Arab Palestine one millimeter.

[madeline_con]

3. If Hamas stops fighting, it will not cause Israel to change its

heavy handed collective punishment of the Palestinians at all.

The time comes when the oppressed are forced to take no more.

[The Magistrate]

4. That, Ma'am, Strikes Me As Nonesense

What 'fighting' Hamas does is aimed at provoking over-reaction from Israel, and Israeli politics would be quite different absent deliberate provocation on that line.

[Shaktimaan]

5. Well, don't forget that all of Israel's policies which are seen as collective punishment

were initially enacted to protect Israelis from terrorism. Had Hamas, IJ and Fatah not begun the rockets and suicide attacks then there would have been no need for them. It is not as if these policies were always in place and the Palestinians are merely reacting to them. Israel's concessions were rewarded with terror. That is not to say that Israel's actions have always been right or justified. But the terrorism that begun during the Oslo Accords and came to a head during the last Intifada were not a reaction to overwhelming oppression. They were politically motivated. Remember, Hamas began their spate of suicide bombing in the 90's as a reaction to the Oslo Accords... as a reaction to the negotiations for peace. Hamas vehemently opposes any permanent peace treaty with Israel. It runs counter to their stated goals.

If Hamas' concern was alleviating Palestinian's suffering they would cease their Qassam attacks, allow Fatah to retake their positions at Rafah, refrain from bombing the crossings into Israel and allow goods and aid to enter unobstructed again. I mean what exactly was this "heavy handed collective punishment" that originally provoked the Qassam attacks anyway?

[The Magistrate]

6. To Be Fair To the Other Side, Sir

The Arab Palestinians can make a good case that their concessions were rewarded with ever-greater encroachment onto what remains of their land by expanding settlements, that certainly from their point of view seem to signal an Israeli intention to leave them not so much as scrap of soil beneath their feet.

My view that violent action against Israel by Arab Palestinian militants is futile, and so foolish beyond words to persist in, does not preclude understanding why people are willing to engage in it.

[Shaktimaan]

7. Very true.

My point was just that the terrorist retaliation preceded any negative Israeli actions. Including any settlement expansion.

Hamas made statements decrying Oslo itself and began ramping up suicide bombings while Israel was still enforcing a 6 month freeze on all settlement construction (following the initial signing of Oslo.)

[The Magistrate]

8. They Should Have Stuck With That, Sir

Why neither side of this comprehends the value of calling the other side's bluffs about the causes of their own mis-behavior mystifies me. It is one of the most effective techniques in the arsenal....

"Forgive your enemies: nothing gets them madder."

[Alamuti Lotus]

9. Ah, but there is much to gain from maintaining the status quo

Some people make their careers and fortunes out of such misbehavior..

[Lithos]

10. The status quo is maintained by the tensions from both sides

And is a proven failure for the peoples of both sides.

L-

[The Magistrate]

12. One Of The Most Common Sights In Schoolyard Fights, Sir

Is to see two youngsters pushing at one another, both leaning forward, locked in a sort of triangle with its base the ground between their feet. My children and grandchildren have all been instructed, when in such a situation, to simply leap backwards, and deal with the opponent in the unbalanced state that inevitably occurs when this is done. The principle is sound at all levels....

[Lithos]

13. That is the image I have as well

And pulling back is indeed in a similar manner is the course I believe would work here as well.

[The Magistrate]

11. True, Sir, And On Both Sides As Well

Careerism is a besetting problem in revolutionist movements that fail to progress steadily and with reasonable speed towards success at their goal. The long failure of Arab Palestinian political leadership presents a text-book case. What is best for the career interests of the militant leader and cadre is the guide, not what is best for the people of Arab Palestine.

[PerfectSage]

14. Cough Cough Sir

Careerism is a problem in social systems like bureaucracy's with positive feedback loops that only reward failure or mostly reward failure like the MICC. Whereas with Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda or the Taliban the slow and the stupid get weeded out.

You really should read what Mao Zedong said about Guerrilla warfare where the people are the water and the guerrilla is the fish that swims in the water sir.


????? "What is best for the career interests of the militant leader and cadre is the guide, not what is best for the people of Arab Palestine."


Trust Trust Trust. That is the basis of an effective militant leader, cadre and people accepting them.

Something Bush/Cheney the Neo Cons and the MICC lacks.


You are the penultimate DU gentleman. You'd be perfect if you had more sense of humour.


When I googled laws of war: My conclusion is that Hamas has violated the spirit but not the letter of the laws of war, regarding harming civilians and damage to property. The US has has violated the letter of the laws of war in Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis and went off the moral deepend in firebombing German and Japanese cities in WW2.

But Hamas has obeyed the letter of the law of tactical defense: placing the attacker on the horns of a dilemma. But it is a grand strategic moral dilemma that Israel has been fucking up for 30 years.

So who's to blame sir?

[The Magistrate]

15. Mao's Works Are Quite Familiar To Me, Sir

My interest in Chinese history greatly exceeds my interest in that of the Levant and its surroundings.

Your view of revolutionary and guerrilla war strikes me as somewhat naive. A major element of people's acquiescence and co-operation with such forces is always a degree of fear of the consequences of doing otherwise. The tipping point, in a general struggle, comes when this fear exceeds fear of the police. You mistake the signifigance of careerism: it does not refer to advancement of fools and incompetents, but to patterns of behavior that seek to further the interests of activists, as opposed to the people in whose name they claim to act. Stuck in a long struggle, without much advance or prospect of near-term success, revolutionist bodies act in ways that will preserve their leading position, and keep conditions which radicalize new recruits in place. This often means actions that are directly against the material interests of the people, and against any end to the conflict they are party to. Calm and peace means they are out of a job.

There is no point in re-hashing the climacteric of the Second World War: it has no relevance here, and came about in conditions which, politically, militarily, and technologically, are very different from those of the present day, and from this particular conflict. Hamas routinely violates the present regulations: they have engaged in military operations whose sole purpose is the killing of non-combatants, without even a pretense of aiming at military personnel; they adopt dispositions of supply and combat points that endanger non-combatants, and do so deliberately. One cannot use as a defense that other persons have violated laws also; a burglar in court who proposed he should be let go because other burglars existed in the city would simply be laughed at. Most of the charges that Israel violates the laws of war rest on ambiguous portions of the regulations, and turn on such considerations as whether sufficient care has been taken to safe-guard non-combatants, relative to the military benefit of an action directed in good faith against a military objective. It is quite possible some Israeli actions fail that test, particularly at present, but it is by no means as clear-cut as many like to suppose.

Grand Strategy is branch of strategy that conditions actions during a conflict so that the victory won is the victory desired: the master of the art in the twentieth century was the Spanish fascist Franco, who at all times conducted his operations with his goal of a Spain controlled by the Spanish right, with the left cowed completely as a political or social force, and succeeded in just that. It is certainly true that there is some disjunction between Israeli military actions and the peace Israel states it desires; the evident consequences of these military actions are not conducive to a peace of co-existence. Democracies generally have a hard time pressing grand strategy competently, because democracies typically fight only when the people's blood is up, and people in that state are inclined to press through to the final destruction of an enemy, without much counting of costs and consequences. Successful grand strategy, at least when a peace of something other than desolation or simple repulsion is the aim of the war, requires a good deal of restraint, and stopping short of all that could be done to the enemy. These are concepts unknown to an angry crowd, which is what a democracy at war basically is.

[PerfectSage]

16. Thank You Sir

My view about the importance of trust in warfare , applies to all warfare. Even non violent conflict. I think trust is the social organizational glue that achieves synergistic effects towards the achievement of goals that helps the nation state or guerrilla band survive and thrive. Since the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians resembles guerrilla warfare I cherry picked through Mao to find the best example to support my trust hypothesis.

To paraphrase what your saying: The nation state has a monopoly on violence. The guerrilla movement seeks to overthrow the states monopoly by attempting to de legitimize the state in the peoples eyes by using tactics that cause the state to overact and brutalize the people. Both sides use moral and immoral means to achieve their goals and both sides are attempting to survive and thrive. Both sides take action that are directly against the material interests of the people while paying lip service to it.

The side that wins the people wins the conflict. The state has difficulty recognizing this and focus's on killing guerrillas. Innocent people are killed and wounded and provide propaganda that allow the guerrilla's to win on the moral/grand strategic level and thus win the people. In theory anyways. As long as Israel considers accidental Palestinian deaths to be collateral damgae... ...they'll keep losing on the grand strategic level.

America lost Viet Nam for the same reason. The government never understood the importance of winning the American and Vietnamese people. Thus they used tactics that killed too many Vietnamese civillians and too many US soldiers and thus caused many Americans to see the war as immoral. So it's just a stab in the back myth that the war protestors caused America to lose, so that the political and military leaders could evade responsibility.

"Calm and peace means they are out of a job." Can't wait till Bush/Cheney are out of jobs.


If all Israeli men between 18 and ???? are either in the IDF front line forces or in the reserve forces, does that mean any civilian place where men of military age are is a valid military target according to the laws of war?

I never thought about Franco as a master of Grand Strategy. I agree he was a master. Interesting ideas about the difficulty democracies have developing and implementing successful grand strategies. As rule of thumb the grand strategic defense is a stronger position than the grand strategic offense. Perhaps we should make the Dalai Lama, benevolent dictator for life.

[The Magistrate]

17. To Answer Your Question First, Sir

Persons liable to calling up to arms, whether potential conscripts or reservists, are not considered combatants unless actually in active military formations, under the laws of war at present, and the statement is explicit. Active duty military personnel are always combatants, even if not at present directly involved in combat: a leave train full of men of furlough headed for the capital is as much a legitimate military target as a train bringing reinforcements to the front. Irregular forces are a little harder to bring into the framework, since what constitutes being 'in active service' in such a body can be difficult to define, and people will argue for broader or tighter standards according to taste. Mine runs towards the broader end, and certainly state forces opposing irregular bodies tend to adopt a very broad standard, understandably. In the particular case of the Israel v. Palestine conflict, where quasi-governmental bodies maintain uniformed militias passed off as police, and are barred from calling any armed body an army, 'police' stand as active army, in my view, and enrollment in the party militia stands as summoning to the colors of a conventional army.

While there are similarities of pattern in all guerrilla conflicts, it is important to look at the specifics: warfare is particularly contingent on the peculiar circumstances within which the conflict takes place. Mao would be a figure known only to specialists absent the Japanese conquest of Manchuria between 1931 and 1933, and the continuing pressure of Japanese encroachments into northern China in succeeding years, for he and the Communist Party in China would certainly have been quashed by the Nationalists absent that external strain, and the shrewd political use Mao made of it. Many guerrilla successes owe to this sort of external strain on the governing power. Viet Nam illustrates another common template of guerrilla struggle. External supply and support from Communist states was vital to maintaining the force that opposed the United States in the field. The lack of any particular vital interest of the United States in Viet Nam greatly effected the intensity of political support in the U.S. for continuing the war there. Change either or both of these two shaping factors, and the outcome might well have been different. Struggles of 'national liberation' against a colonial power succeed largely in accordance with the measure to which the metropolitan populace sees no vital interest at stake in holding the colony, along with the degree of other strain the home country is under from other factors, such as a foreign foe or an economic dislocation or recent calamity, and also the degree to which external aid is received by the rebellion.

One of the problems with applying patterns of 'national liberation' struggle to the conflict between Israel and Arab Palestine is the poor fit of Israel as a metropolitan center holding a colony in the usual sense. There is no distance of ocean or borderlands; the metropolitan area itself is struck directly by the opposing guerrilla force. There is no chance of the metropolitan populace being or becoming indifferent to the outcome of the struggle, since it is directly affected, and so will always perceive it has a vital interest in the outcome. Nor do patterns of internal, revolutionary struggle fit the case well, for both sides see themselves as distinct, different peoples, and so harsh measures by the government always have an 'other' as their object, and the populace will not feel itself under potential threat from the harshness its government displays, nor have much fellow feeling with the objects of its harshest behavior, and it is these things that can lead to the domestic delegitimization of a government among the people it rules.

[PerfectSage]

18. Hello Sir

I agree that external supply along the Ho Chi Minh trail was a shaping factor for the Viet Nam conflict. In fact, the thing that General Giap feared the most was American troops physically cutting off the trail rather than bombing it. He never could understand why they didn't.

The most relevant fact about political support in the US in Viet Nam is: that the US army never even thought about the consequences of using a strategy that caused so much death and destruction in Viet Nam on political support in the US. General Giap understood Sun Tzu(Even Mao borrowed heavily from Sun Tzu) which gave him a strategic advantage: He understood that the will of the Viet Namese and American people were the two most significant factors shaping the conflict.

If you look at the Viet Nam conflict through the lenses of Clausewitz:

1. The people are a center of gravity, that provide the hate that fuels the will to win against all odds and explains why propaganda and the demonetization of the other are important aspects of warfare.

2. The army employs creativity to develop tactics and strategy that outwit and defeat the enemy.

3. The government is the rational goal setter of the war that decides when to start and end a war.

It's obvious the US failed on all three of Clausewitz's levels in Viet Nam.

The best research paper that I ever read at the combined arms research library was a method to evaluate strategy or tactics by ends, ways and means.
The author described America's strategy in Viet Nam as: The perfect strategy(ways) to expend an infinite amount of resources(means) to achieve nothing(ends).
Sir, that idea sums up my opinion on Israel's strategy vs the Palestinians; and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. lol


I'll explain now why I believe that the pattern of national liberation struggle is appropriate to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

General Giap understood that both the American and Viet Namese people were both centers of gravity and that they were both won or lost on the moral level.
He understood that anything he or his army did that the Vietnamese and American thought was moral helped him to win.
He also realized that anything that the American army did that the Vietnamese and American people thought was immoral helped him to win.

Neither the Israel or the Palestinians have grasped that and neither side has tried to win the others center of gravity.


The relevant facts about Israel vs the Palestinians are: Israel won over 50 years ago and kicked them out of most of their lands.
There has been a hot/cold conflict for over 50 years.
Palestinian asymmetrical warfare terrorist tactics haven't forced Israel's people to give them a good enough peace deal.
Israel's efforts to force the Palestinians into accepting a bad peace deal hasn't worked.

Neither side has tried winning the other side's center of gravity ie the people through winning on the moral level.
Israel's unwillingness over the last 30 years to give the Palestinians an acceptable peace deal has caused and still causes all sorts of problems for American interests in the middle east.
Israel is an island of 7 million jews living in a sea of a couple hundred million muslims.

Sir, Thinking as the rational goal setting government in Clausewitz's people/army/government trinity the most logical conclusion I can come to:

30 years ago, America should have held Israel's feet to fire and forced them to give the Palestinians a good enough peace deal. Offer Israel a guarantee of national security and tell them to stop behaving like a bad ally.


I thought you might like to read this: Moshe Dayan's impression of america in Viet Nam

http://www.shalomctr.org/node/641

[cali]

19. lol.

it's not often that I get a laugh out of I/P, but your post is quite entertaining.

:rofl: