Seven Oaks Magazine.

With the invasion of the Gaza strip and the new war in Lebanon, Ehud Olmert has made it inexorably clear that Israel will not negotiate. They will not negotiate with the European Union; they will not negotiate with any of the rest of the international community that condemns these wildly disproportionate massacres; they will not negotiate with Hamas or Hezbollah; and they certainly will not negotiate any sort of peace terms, full stop. Israel’s response to the capturing of one of their soldiers by sending the cavalry into the dilapidated Gaza Strip, destroying infrastructure and power supplies, wounding and killing whole families and children (as documented in even the most mainstream of media outlets) and causing a humanitarian disaster, had world leaders scratching their heads and International Human rights groups scrambling to their keyboards and clutching their phones.

Israeli troops proceeded to bomb and shoot an already starving population, arresting key Hamas leaders if not outright executing them. Hamas did not budge; insisting on the time honoured Palestinian/Israeli tradition of the prisoner trade. Enter Hezbollah, Lebanon’s resident religious righties, a militant group that holds democratically elected representation in the Lebanese parliament, who raid the northern Israeli border to nab two more soldiers and help out their long standing Hamas allies. Olmert responds by pointing the finger at Syria and Iran for providing logistical and military support, and now Stephen Harper can suitably ape George W. Bush, both releasing public statements that Israel has the right to defend itself by blaming all the Lebanese and bombing Beirut. Forget that collective punishment is condemned by international law – which counts for zip when measured against the will of the U.S. and Israeli governments. Forget the broken bodies, decimated homes, dead soccer playing children. Let’s talk context. Most of the media, pundits, and talking heads would have you believe that Olmert is merely flexing so as to prove that he will not negotiate with terrorists, and that extreme actions will be met with extreme responses (uber extreme, in this case). Militants had been firing Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel, causing massive damage to telephone poles and mail boxes. Zero casualties.

To understand the real intentions of Israel, however, we must look back to the January elections, when Hamas took the top democratic prize after a “no Fatah” election that saw previous Palestinian government Mahmoud Abbas’s secular party (Fatah) floundering under its own reputation of corruption. The U.S. and Israel released a public statement of non recognition of Hamas, and Jimmy Carter slapped his own forehead knowing full well the election was legitimate and transparent. Score one for democracy. The U.S. and Israel were cheerleading for Abbas, who looked pliable and amenable to Israeli demands for border fixtures in the much awaited two-state solution. Two months later, despite the fact that Hamas had honoured a cease fire for over a year, the international community (Including Canada, the U.S., and the EU) suspended all financial support to the Palestinian Government (PA – now Hamas controlled) guaranteed by the Oslo agreements and Israel stopped transferring taxes collected on the PA’s behalf.

The population began to starve. Gaza, which had already been suffering from sporadic blockades causing food shortages, broke into civil strife as remaining president Abbas’s forces squabbled with a newly created Hamas security force. The U.S. and EU tried to figure out ways to funnel money directly to Abbas’s office. In a tour of the West Bank this April, I watched middle class families hawk their jewelry and sell their cars to make ends meet, much too proud to except the charitable donations usually reserved for refugee camps. I shuddered to think how the poorer majority would manage. Meanwhile, Olmert released a statement declaring that if Hamas does not recognize the right of Israel to exist, Israel will set its own borders by the end of 2007. With the situation in Gaza so desperate, civil strife and the exchange of rocket fire between Israel and the Strip, starvation and lack of medicine, and Abbas making political threats, there could surely be neither time nor a comfortable atmosphere for peace. Hamas has refused to recognize the right for Israel to exist and used this as their only bargaining tool (which they held on to fiercely after seeing Fatah make concession after concession with no reciprocity). Recognition of a future Palestinian state was surely not to be realized under these conditions. What would transpire however were increased tensions and a complete stall of any progressive process.

The ever so slowly moving wheels in my head began to creek. The capturing of these soldiers marks an act of desperation from the virtually powerless Hamas militants, and may have played right into Olmert’s hands. The subsequent invasion and brutal response does not in any way hold promise for the release of the prisoner, but only more armed response. With Hezbollah now joining the fray Israel can better play the victim – as it seems that Hezbollah’s rockets have a better record of reaching their targets. It also gives them a chance to wipe out the pesky Hezbollah militants (an impossible task) who have been a thorn in Israel’s side for decades. Ignoring the Lebanese parliament’s (the majority of which is not Hezbollah) statements, Israel has put the onus on the nation as a whole, and is bombing not only Hezbollah controlled south Lebanon, but the capital as well.

But Olmert’s real motives are beginning to show. His party, Kadeema, touted as the path to peace following Sharon’s Gaza pullout and his creation of the new party, have no intention of sitting down and negotiating a two state solution as previously stated. To do so would mean having to bow to the pressure of the international community and draw their borders back to the “green line” established in 1967, and widely regarded as the only suitable solution for an established Palestinian State. This is unacceptable to Olmert, who would rather have control of vital water resources in the West Bank buttressed by the presence of illegal Jewish settlements that have been established for years. This notion is confirmed by the pattern of the security fence or aparthied wall, which now doubles as a barrier to resources and land, cutting across the green line and shutting the poorest of Palestinians off from their livelihood. Olmert’s promise to withdraw settlements in the West Bank only served to paint Kadeema as the dove, ignoring the utter uselessness and obscurity of the specified settlements position and their proposed relocation.

The longer Olmert can maintain an environment of hostility and exacerbate tensions between Israel and Palestinians, Lebanon, and Syria (Iran exacerbates just fine on its own) the longer he can delay if not outright avoid legitimate negotiations. This will allow him to draw his own borders and leave Palestinians with what promises to be no more than scattered broken pieces of land with no semblance of functional statehood, and no Jerusalem. It’ss an old Israeli trick to be sure, and has worked to fritter away Palestinian borders for 60 years. Those supporters of Israeli actions that argue that Hamas has no legitimacy as a government for maintaining a militant wing and formerly operating as a terrorist group either have very little grasp of Israeli history or choose to ignore it as an inconvenient stumbling block to their argument. As Gwynne Dyer adeptly pointed out in the July 13 issue of the Georgia Straight, Israel too operated as an ambiguous “proto-state” funded by the international community under the auspices of a British mandate. Prior to 1948, in order to secure their creation they built military institutes such as the Hagana (precursor to today’s IDF) and had elected councils, both of which often indiscreetly cooperated with terrorist groups like the Stern Gang and Irgun in bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations of British officials and Palestinian innocents. One famous terrorist, for instance, Menachem Begin, served as Israel’s Prime Minister from 1977-1981.

As Palestinian and now Lebanese casualties climb steadily and Israeli casualties occur far more remotely, the Olmert government will continue to enjoy the scuttling of peace, reaping its political and economic rewards. As Palestinians respond to dire conditions, they will continue to be painted as the aggressors by the US and Canada – both of whom have clear political motivations in the region, and rely on Israel as a trusted (if not erratic) ally. It is this writer’s humble wish that the true motivations of these three states will no longer be obscured in the discourse of “finding peace and democracy” or “not negotiating with terrorists” and that the desperate and outraged voices of an oppressed and humiliated people can be given their due recognition. Then we will see if Olmert will put down his guns.