Politicising
Gaza's Misery
By
Ramzy Baroud
20 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
Intense
debate over Gaza is subsiding as the status quo is delineated -- predictably
-- by those with the bigger guns. But to what extent can human suffering
be politicised, turned into an intellectual polemic that fails to affect
the simplest change in people's lives?
Hamas's political
advent in January 2006 as the first "opposition" movement
in the Arab world to ascend to power using peaceful and democratic means
was successfully thwarted in a brazen coup, engineered jointly by the
United States, Israel and renegade Palestinians factionalists. Following
this, history was rewritten, as is usual, by the victor. Thus Hamas,
a party embodying democratic institutions in the occupied territories,
became the party that "overthrew" Abbas's "legitimate"
democracy. As strange a notion as that is (a government overthrowing
itself), it went down in the annals of Western media as uncontested
truth.
All parties
involved, directly or otherwise, were expected to determine their position
from this fallacious claim, and they did so to meet their own interests.
Some had little problem in disowning Palestinian democracy altogether.
The United States government, Israel, the European Union, and various
non- democratic Arab governments were delighted by the outcome of Palestinian
infighting. They celebrated Abbas and his faction as the true and legitimate
democrats, and chastised those who disagreed. Countries such as Russia,
South Africa and some Arab Gulf states followed suit, with some hesitation
and disgruntlement, but too weak or indecisive to confront the status
quo.
On the Palestinian
front, the choices were harder, but nonetheless those who were previously
aligned neither to Fatah nor Hamas now positioned themselves quickly
on the side that served them best. Renowned leftists, for example, who
normally spoke as though they were representatives of the voice of reason,
now couldn't risk losing what few ineffective NGOs they operated in
a management style more reminiscent of "grocery stores" (the
actual name that many Palestinians use to mock many of the NGOs in their
midst).
Fear of losing
freedom of movement and access to US and European financial institutions
motivated many Palestinians to disown Gaza completely. The sympathy
millions of people worldwide felt towards the perpetually suffering
Gazans translated mostly in the realm of the intangible. Helplessness
prevailed and quickly joined the prevalent sense of powerlessness and
incapacity long affiliated with Palestine in general and Gaza in particular.
To distract
from this issue, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were hurriedly
rushed to Annapolis for a badly needed photo-op. Exalted by the self-proclaimed
champion of democracy, President Bush, both leaders are on a new quest
for peace. The US-sponsored sideshow has achieved its aim. Dates such
as January 2006 among others are now completely cast aside; new dates,
new rhetoric and new promises are replacing the old ones; all eyes are
now on Abbas and Olmert, Ramallah and Tel Aviv, with calls for future
conferences and painful compromises. And Gaza is becoming a forgotten
or irrelevant footnote.
The Strip
is under a harsh and unprecedented siege, with people dying as a result
of the lack of medical aid. Israel has cut diesel supplies to 60,000
litres, when 350,000 litres are required daily. How can an already underdeveloped
economy run on such a meagre amount of energy, let alone hospitals and
schools? Electricity is also being drastically cut, as per the recommendation
of Israel's High Court, and unemployment is at the highest level it
has ever been (past the 75 per cent mark). One and a half million inhabitants
are literary trapped in a 365-square kilometre prison without any breathing
room whatsoever and little food, little energy, and are told, more or
less, that they deserve their fate.
If the media
mentions Gaza at all, it does so in a politicised context. For example:
three militants killed by Israeli missiles; Israeli army says militants
were on their way to fire rockets into Israel; Hamas leader remains
defiant, and so on. Much of the coverage is now focussed only on augmenting
the sins of Hamas, whereby every single conduct or misconduct is blown
out of proportion. The bottom line is that whatever suffering Gazans
endure, it is caused by the Hamas militant menace and their "forces
of darkness". Whether Hamas's violations of human rights are at
all related to the state of siege, murder and chaos created by the many
circumstances that preceded it, remains completely irrelevant. Gaza
has become the needed leading precept for Palestinians, and others,
reminding them of what they cannot dare do if they want to be spared
the same fate. Palestinians in the West Bank are being asked to contrast
the images of angry, bearded Hamas police officers cracking down on
protesters with the soft-spoken bespectacled Abbas in international
conferences brimming amid healthy, overfed faces.
The true
reasons behind Gaza's suffering are entirely omitted, except by a few
Arab and progressive newspapers like this one. The debate is now being
moved from the immediate concern of media circles into academic conferences,
books and long essays; parallels are abundantly invoked between Gaza
and other spheres of US influence.
This is not
to deny credit to those who have had the courage to take the right stance
on the dramatic events unfolding in Gaza. Many possess enough humanity
to separate the politics that led to Gaza's complete isolation from
the fact that real people with feelings and hopes and aspirations are
suffering, enduring and dying unnecessarily before our very eyes. Israel's
camp is relentless in justifying Israel's racism and the brutality inflicted
on Palestinians, using the same tired arguments, such as Israel's security
and right to exist, and accusing their detractors of anti-Semitism at
every turn. But what argument could there be for those who are troubled
by human suffering and yet losing sight of Gaza's misery? I cannot think
of any justification for apathy before a dying child, whether black,
white, Arab, Jewish or any other.
Let's not
allow inhumanity to become the accepted norm. If we allowed it to triumph
in Gaza, we are deemed to repeat it elsewhere.
Ramzy
Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net)
is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide.
His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a
People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
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