[OPE] Moshe Machover on Gaza

As part of its more immediate to medium-term plan, Israel is determined to destroy any Palestinian leadership. They have two methods. One, they deploy massive military force to simply physically annihilate it. Two, if cowed rather than destroyed, it becomes like the Palestinian Authority leadership. Quislings. A leadership that has capitulated to Israel and the US. Thus it is morally destroyed. This is what it is trying to do to Hamas. The easiest route to destroy the leadership of the Palestinians is to use physical force. Of course, they cannot hope to get rid of Hamas as a movement. They cannot finally defeat Hamas, but they can make it difficult if not impossible for Hamas to exercise political power in Gaza.

In this sense, it is significant that their military onslaught has specifically targeted instruments of simple political power that Hamas utilises to rule. Hamas is a sort of quasi-state in Gaza. Thus, the very first act of the Israelis was the deliberate slaughter of policemen. (Who are civilians according to international law, by the way.) They targeted graduating policemen and killed 40 of them with one bomb. Then, they targeted various buildings with some political significance. Offices, schools, the university and mosques. The mosques are particularly significant. Hamas is a political-religious movement. It organises its mass base through the mosques. Israel used the excuse that weapons were being stored in the mosques - I think this is spin. Their political significance is different from being a simple arsenal.

The mosque is where Hamas interacts and organises its mass base support. This is why Israel has targeted them. Ditto the schools and Islamic university. These are actions calculated to make it impossible for Hamas to exercise political power except through the good offices of Israel once it has capitulated. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah underwent the same process. The Israelis deployed great force against them. They capitulated, but not enough for the Israelis. Arafat resisted jumping the last hurdle, as it were. He baulked at the final capitulation. Then they assassinated him - a view that is pretty much accepted as fact now, despite the absence of hard evidence.

So, Israel's plan is to make it impossible for a non-compliant Palestinian leadership to exercise any power. (...) It was not Hamas that broke the ceasefire that was in place for six months. In fact, it was an Israeli initiative - again on a convenient date when the world's attention was elsewhere. November 4-5, the date of the American elections. On that date, there was an Israeli incursion into Gaza. They killed a group of Hamas men, justifying it by claiming that they were digging a tunnel that could have been used for attacks inside Israel. In addition, during the whole six-month truce, Israel did not lift its siege - it continued with the blockade, in itself an act of war. So Hamas had very little motivation to continue what was a very one-sided ceasefire. The Israeli authorities knew that Hamas would do the only thing it could do. That is, to fire off a few dozen indiscriminate rockets. Israel was thus preparing for this incursion some six months ago, from the very beginning of the ceasefire. It is not an ad hoc reaction to provocations - it was very carefully organised. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/751/hellfor.html

The total backing which the Israeli state has had in its murderous, lawless violence from Bush, Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown is very sinister - it shows how morally degenerate the Western bourgeoisie has become. It would not surprise me if we get more political assassinations in Western Europe in the future.

J.

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Received on Sat Jan 17 16:56:04 2009