Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights

Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
by Richard Falk---United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
Posted January 2, 2009

For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced 
a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing 
challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged 
some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an 
effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the 
cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly 
on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the 
border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in 
Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year 
period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on 
acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic 
initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire 
agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been 
restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.
Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship 
awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At 
the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to 
enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago 
when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for 
human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East 
Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, 
Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving 
accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that 
had been already documented as producing severe declines in the 
physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, 
especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of 
treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. 
The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave 
condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.
As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing 
on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American 
public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an 
exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown 
of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the 
alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more 
clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the 
ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed 
at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several 
Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza 
intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions 
called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, 
much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom. Beyond this, attributing 
all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of 
independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-
backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be 
sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well 
confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing 
structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted 
effort to do so.
What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its 
devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the 
rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged 
reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks 
that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the 
public for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The 
timing of the attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: 
most of all, the interest of political contenders, the Defense 
Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in 
demonstrating their toughness prior to national elections scheduled 
for February, but now possibly postponed until military operations 
cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature of past Israeli 
election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the current 
government was being successfully challenged by Israel's notoriously 
militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures 
to uphold security. Reinforcing these electoral motivations was the 
little concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to 
seize the opportunity in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure 
to destroy Hezbollah in the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both 
tarnished Israel's reputation as a military power and led to 
widespread international condemnation of Israel for the heavy 
bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate force, 
and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily populated areas.
Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further. For 
instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New 
York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper 
set of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the 
public that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened 
by Arab mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite 
Israeli prosperity of recent years, and relative security, several 
factors have led Israel to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived 
continuing refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of Israel 
as an established reality; the inflammatory threats voiced by Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad together with Iran's supposed push to acquire nuclear 
weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined with growing 
sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the 
radicalization of political movements on Israel's borders in the form 
of Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying 
via the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the 
region that it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of 
sovereignty and security.
There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of Gaza are being 
severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border 
security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects of 
current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region 
that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at 
stake.

That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal outside 
interference also shows the weakness of international law and the 
United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the 
important players. The passive support of the United States government 
for whatever Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 
2006 when it launched its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less 
evident is that the main Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi 
Arabia, with their extreme hostility toward Hamas that is viewed as 
backed by Iran, their main regional rival, were also willing to stand 
aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked, with some Arab 
diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity or on the 
refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President 
of the Palestinian Authority.
The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: 
producing what Israel itself calls a 'total war' against an 
essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military 
capability whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks 
mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means 
is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as 
set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the 
carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that 
the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members 
deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to 
unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the 
public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing 
will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day 
by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to 
international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here 
in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised 
its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to 
diplomatic leadership.

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