Method and Madness by Norman G. Finkelstein

Author:Norman G. Finkelstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: e9781939293725
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2014-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

5/ GO AHEAD, INVADE! (2012)

ON 14 NOVEMBER 2012, Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense. According to the official story line, the assault began only after it had stoically absorbed hundreds of Hamas projectile attacks. The facts, however, suggest otherwise. From the start of 2012, one Israeli had been killed as a result of Palestinian attacks from Gaza, whereas 78 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli strikes. Hamas had mostly steered clear of armed confrontations. In the methodical madness that is Israeli policy towards Gaza, Ahmed al-Jaabari, the Hamas leader whose assassination by Israel triggered the new round of fighting, had served as Israel’s “subcontractor” for enforcing the periodic cease-fires;1 in fact, he was in the process of “advancing a permanent cease-fire agreement” when Israel liquidated him.2 But Hamas also recoiled at the prospect of becoming a clone of the collaborationist Palestinian Authority (PA). It occasionally turned a blind eye, or joined in (if only to prevent an escalation), when Israeli provocations resulted in retaliatory strikes by Hamas’s more militant Islamist rivals.

At the time Israel launched Pillar of Defense, it was widely speculated that Hamas had been itching for a fight. On every front, however, Hamas had been on a roll prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Its ideological soul mate, the Muslim Brotherhood, had risen to power in Egypt. The emir of Qatar had journeyed to Gaza carrying the promise of $400 million in aid, while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was scheduled to arrive shortly. In the West Bank, many Palestinians envied Gaza’s (imagined) economic prosperity. In the meantime, Gaza’s Islamic University had even managed to pull off an academic conference attended by renowned linguist Noam Chomsky. Hamas’s star was slowly but surely rising, at the expense of the hapless PA. The very last thing it needed at that juncture was an inevitably destructive confrontation with Israel that could jeopardize these hard-won, steadily accreting gains.

On the other side, some cynical Israelis speculated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched Pillar of Defense to boost his chances in the upcoming election. As a general rule, however, Israeli leaders would not undertake major military operations or jeopardize critical state interests for the sake of partisan electoral gain. It was also purported that Israel’s governing coalition had to do something to appease popular indignation at the Hamas projectiles. But in fact, they had barely registered on Israel’s political radar; public opinion was focused on the Islamic Republic of Iran and sundry domestic issues.

Why, then, did Israel attack?

In one sense, Israel was transparent about its motive. It kept repeating that it wanted to restore its “deterrence capacity.” The real puzzle is the nature of the threat it sought to deter. Pillar of Defense unfolded in the broader context of successive Israeli foreign policy failures. Netanyahu had endeavored to rally the international community for an attack on Iran, but ended up looking the fool as he held up in the United Nations a comic-strip depiction of The Iranian Bomb. Hezbollah boasted that a drone

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