Gaza: roundup of analysis

Perhaps the hardest thing about watching these news reports showing families in Gaza trembling under Israeli bombardment is the thought that some of the mothers, fathers and children we see in these pictures may not survive the next few days and weeks. What we see here could be their last moments; indeed, by the time these reports reach us they may already have been killed, or be lying in the makeshift emergency ward of a broken-down and overwhelmed Gazan hospital. The fact is, we’ll probably never know.

With its air force having softened Gaza up with a week of bombing that has killed almost 500 people and injured over two thousand (Gaza has no anti-aircraft defences of course), Israel has now launched its ground invasion, sending tanks into the small coastal strip that is home to 1.5 million Palestinian people (many of them refugees driven from their former homes in the very parts of Israel from which those tanks now come). The United States has blocked a UN Security Council statement that would have called for an immediate ceasefire.

Today I’d like to recommend a few comment and analysis articles I’ve read on the past week’s events.

Chris McGreal is one of the Guardian/Observer’s finest correspondents, and his piece in this morning’s Observer is an excellent work of analytical journalism. McGreal describes the huge propaganda effort that Israel is undertaking – through its ministries and embassies, but also through ostensibly independent advocacy groups and bloggers - to win the battle for global public opinion and secure the support or acquiescence the world’s governments while it carries out its attacks. He then examines the content of Israel’s PR effort and the justifications it is offering for its actions, finding – surprise surprise – that the Israeli case is essentially bogus. So I place this article at the top of my list and recommend it highly.

Another good examination and deconstruction of Israel’s case for attacking Gaza is provided by Tony Karon, a senior editor at Time.com and - especially in his personal capacity as a blogger - a very smart and perceptive analyst of the politics of Middle East.

Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, provides this timely and thoughtful article on how repression and violence rely on the suspension of empathy and the denial of the humanity of one’s victims. Gideon Levy, one of Israel’s best journalists, writes powerfully on that same theme in this article.

Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper note that many of those on the pro-Israeli government side who attacked the proposed boycott of Israeli universities on grounds of academic freedom were strangely quiet when Israel bombed a university in Gaza last week. Apparently, while boycotting Israeli universities is bad, bombing Palestinian universities is nothing to get steamed up about.

(To note: the argument in favour of an academic boycott has been that Israeli universities are often complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, at least at some level, and that boycotts and divestment can be an important means of pressuring a government to change unjust policies, as was the case with Apartheid South Africa. I don’t agree with the idea myself (and nor did many others who are concerned for the plight of the Palestinians). I think an arms boycott (for one thing) would be a better targeted action. But I absolutely do not stand with the critics of the proposed boycott from the pro-Israeli government side; people who seem to care remarkably little for the Palestinians and who certainly need to get their facts and their arguments straight)

On the liberal US political website The Huffington Post, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouthi provides his own refutation of the key myths of the Israeli propaganda effort. Barghouthi is a secular liberal who advocates non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation and his account of the past week’s events is rooted in the factual record. Yet still the Huffington Post, as is typical of the moral cowardice that afflicts many US liberals where Israel is concerned, sees fit to handle his opinions with rubber gloves, inserting the weasel words that his “views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Huffington Post”, a disclaimer that apparently no other Post contributor requires. Well, at least they published it.

If you want some deeper background, I can recommend, for one thing, Khaled Hroub's "Hamas: A Beginner's Guide". It’s a good, solid introduction to the subject. Highly informed, readable, and benefitting from some thoughtful and balanced analysis, its probably the best of the books available on Hamas. More good information on the group can be found at Conflicts Forum.

I’ll finish by reiterating a point I made earlier in the week. You’re not obliged to simply watch these events unfold. There are practical, small things you can do which, when combined with the small individual efforts of many others, add up to something significant. The first of those is donating money to the relief effort. The world’s top aid agencies are trying to get humanitarian supplies to the victims of Israel’s bombing, and you can rely on them to make best use of whatever amount you can afford to give. You can donate to Oxfam, Christian Aid, Save the Children, CAFOD, or any aid agency you prefer.

The other thing you can do is protest. Israel is making every effort to win the PR war, and public protest can undermine that, thus increasing pressure on Israel to bring its murderous actions to an end. There are demonstrations planned in the UK throughout this week and, if you’re not resident in Britain, I’m sure the anti-war groups in your country have their own campaigns in action.