It is very strange that the “middle east conflict” has been ongoing, since there is near universal agreement on the basic preliminaries: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders.[i] Fast forward to the Gaza massacre known in Israel as “Operation Cast Lead”, in 2008, bringing us to one case of a “stage two: armed conflict”. Mertus and Helsing infer from jurist and professor, Richard Falk’s position that a “just humanitarian intervention” approach, is analogous to “just war” theory, as a necessary approach by the international community in response to humanitarian crisis and human rights.[ii] Falk argues that a “rights based” intervention legitimizes intervention as well as justifies “conflict resolution” efforts, simultaneously underscoring the quality and objective of outside intervention. Others, more popularly, advocate arbitrary intervention rather than no intervention: “the motives of interveners are rarely pure…but still, strong moral arguments may exist for intervening on human rights grounds”.[iii] Albeit an inconsistent argument, and a popular trend, this sentiment raises the obvious question: are the moral arguments of intervening parties reconcilable with armed force. More often than not, is it civilian casualties, i.e., “collateral damage” that can actually exacerbate human rights violations, and prove “counterproductive” spawning inverse power dynamics of victim to aggressor, or terrorized to “terrorist”. Thus scholars suggest policy in tune with international law, while promoting human rights, in order to prevent conditions of conflict and violence, or a “lasting peace”. Thus the “peace process”, in the case of the Occupied Palestinians and the Israeli occupying military, is rarely scrutinized for its quality and objective, and rather taken as genuine ‘good faith’ policy at face value. The asymmetry of power between the various involved groups are neutralized in media language, and “facts on the ground” contradict the justification and motive for interventionists. Furthermore, they inhibit conditions for peace, all the while, scrutiny and demand for a ‘just peace’ is perceived as biased.[iv] The focus however is not on the hypocrisy of interventions, or recent doctrines and arbitrary trends as “R2P”; rather it is on the implications of human rights violations in the context of “Operation Cast Lead” and so-called “efforts” to resolve them.
Operation Cast Lead: Gaza
In December 27, 2008, Israel unleashed a flurry of air attacks, and continued again in January 3rd, 2009, dropping over 1000 tons of explosives on the densely populated Gaza strip. While the bombardments continued past midday, “a busy time, when the streets were full of civilians, including school children leaving classes at the end of the morning shift and those going to school for the second shift”, Israeli forces had by the end of the day “bombed over 240 targets” and by January 18th, killed “some 300 children, more than 115 women and some 85 men over the age of 50”.[v] The typical response outside of Israel and the occupied territories is ‘self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks’ however, this is “a claim not even made by Israel, whose defense minister that same evening termed the action an ‘offensive.”[vi] If this is not enough, the Israeli consulate provides the public with figures underscoring its modus operandi. If “Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill”; in other words, Israel is known to break 79% of all cease fires by killing Palestinians, first.[vii] Political historian, Norman Finkelstein, suggests political interests as a guiding principle for Israel’s actions, and he presents documentary evidence for the main motive of the Gaza invasion. He writes that “Operation Cast Lead” was meant to maintain Israel’s “deterrence capacity”, as well as “counter the threat posed by a new Palestinian ‘peace offensive’”.[viii] The question of human rights violations does not underscore the severity of the Israeli campaign; it merits mention that the use of disproportionate force and destroying civilian infrastructure, not to mention civilians, constitutes “crimes against humanity”.[ix]
Impact on Human Rights in “Operation Cast Lead”
In a sophisticated tone, a la petitio principia, Abu-Nimer and Kaufman nonchalantly suggest prolonging the ongoing, discriminatory procedures over human rights violations by Israel and Jews since, “several amnesties were granted in the past to Jewish accused of such acts” (emphasis mine). As if an exemption should follow for any citizen violating the law due to the banality of their actions. Abu-Nimer and Kaufman further state “it would not be a good idea to hold the Palestinians…to same standards as Jewish members of the terrorist underground”, which by this they mean amnesty, and the denial of due process. More to the point the scholars prescribe Palestinians to a different human rights standard and a “jointly” release process “mechanism” in order “to minimize recidivism”, for those imprisoned.[x] We may recall that this prescription and patronizing “mechanism” in another context is called “state sponsored terrorism”,[xi] granting any state with an operative policy of unlimited recidivism. Therefore, in seeking to understand the impact of human rights, we must look outside of the all too familiar Washington consensus in order to get a less distorted version of jurisprudence, and conflict resolution, as well as their influential effects on the international community. Incidentally, then President of the UN General Assembly described the Israeli actions in Gaza as “genocide”[xii]. UN relief official Jan Egeland stated that “some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space hide”. Moreover, John Pilger, a journalist for The Nation, reported that a “genocide” was “engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders... a people "living in a cage", cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes”.[xiii] In response to what official Israelis stated as their goals to “the destruction of all means of life”[xiv], the international community and civil society “protested from Denmark, Turkey, Pakistan, Cyprus, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Sudan, and even Israel” calling for and end to what protestors called “’genocide’ in Gaza”.[xv] In the spirit of normalcy over the impact of human rights on the scene of violations, especially a violation of western ‘just war’ principles, the mainstream position was silent. Just as the “military operations also displayed an Israeli military wish to experiment with new weapons…intended to kill civilians” and termed by former IDF former chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, as the “need to brand in the Palestinian consciousness the fearsome might of the Israeli Army”.[xvi] In sum, one is to suspense criticism, while the masters are busy stifling peace, with unbridled use of firepower, vis a vis gunships, fighter jets, and tanks, and drones – all the traditional defensive tools. Meanwhile in academia, Abu-Nimer and Kaufman, cannot distinguish between “formidable barrier” and the “real” threat for Palestinians, while unashamedly defining the threat “perceived” by Israelis: “the language of human rights”. Thus, while Israelis are busy in defending themselves against an agrarian population subject to collective punishment and military occupation, within ‘the only Jewish democracy’, they fear inner criticism. Moreover, the notion of “peace” proves elusive to Palestinians without they first embracing a “just peace” by the only occupying power - Israel.[xvii]
Superseding the impact of the so-called “human rights” paradigm, or rather the lack of it, in the context of Gaza has prompted popular outrage by Jews and gentiles the world over. Incidentally, it has been none other than the former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Richard Goldstone, described as a “staunch Zionist” by his own admission, who was appointed to head the UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission in Gaza. The Goldstone Report found that in seeking to “punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself”[xviii], Israel committed numerous violations of “customary and conventional international law”[xix]. Overcrowding as Israel did, the long list of war crimes included, “willful killing, torture or inhumane treatment…willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health…extensive destruction of property”, carried out unlawfully and wantonly, and “use of human shields”.[xx] This Report has marked an emergence of a new human rights paradigm in the Israel-Palestine “conflict”, moving the insincere “peace process” framework to the side. In sum, it seems that official state policy for peace is finally falling apart at the seams, revealing their non-commitment to international human rights, while the international community can barely stitch together law and press for implementation of justice.
Efforts to Resolve the Conflict and the Peace Process:
In December of 2008, the Arab League, and the European Union called for an immediate halt to violence. In January of 2009, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1860 demanding “an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire” and an end to the Gaza fighting, and withdrawal of the Israeli military – it was abstained 14-1, compliments of the United States. Meanwhile “in New York, the U.N. Security Council held a special meeting to discuss the latest developments. Several council diplomats said the U.S. refusal to back the Libyan-drafted demand for an immediate truce had killed the initiative, since council statements must be passed unanimously”.[xxi] Within the same week, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, stated the resolution as “not practical" and that the Gaza offensive would continue because "the [Israeli military] will continue to act in order to protect the citizens of Israel”. This ‘protection’ mind you, occurs within the borders of Gaza, or in the occupied West Bank resulting in eviction of Arabs from their homes.[xxii] By now, it should be obvious there is no attempt to resolve the “conflict”, and the “peace process” should read as “process” rather than peace.
Abu-Nimer and Kaufman note that, “political elites…have not been socialized, on the whole, into the language and use of human rights as a universal principle”. This seems to eliminate hegemons from a non-interest approach to usher in some peace. Moreover, neither has American academia, and consequently, civil society as a whole, been cultured into expanding the definition of civilization. This should rather raise questions about our own aptitude for intervention, or as third party negotiators. However, speculations aside, a human rights shift (civilization) in society would undermine “interests” abroad. Thus for the sake of this paper there needs to be stress on the very simple, however a challenge to Americans, of a “people-to-people” relationship[xxiii] to a resolve for the ‘middle east conflict’.
[i] These include Arab states, the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), as well as non-state groups such as Hamas. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Armistice_Agreements
[ii] Mertus, Julie, and Jeffrey W. Helsing. 2006. Human rights and conflict: exploring the links between rights, law, and peacebuilding. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. (p.15)
[iii] ibid.
[viii] Finkelstein, Norman G. 2010. "This time we went too far": truth and consequences of the Gaza invasion. New York: OR Books. (p. 29)
[x] Mertus, Julie, and Jeffrey W. Helsing. 2006. Human rights and conflict: exploring the links between rights, law, and peacebuilding. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. (p. 283)
[xi] Aust, Anthony. 2005. Handbook of international law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (p. 265).
[xvi] Chomsky, Noam, Ilan Pappé, and Frank Barat. 2010.Gaza in crisis: reflections on Israel's war against the Palestinians. London: Hamish Hamilton. (p.194)
[xvii] Mertus, Julie, and Jeffrey W. Helsing. 2006. Human rights and conflict: exploring the links between rights, law, and peacebuilding. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. (p.15)
[xix] Finkelstein, Norman G. 2010. "This time we went too far": truth and consequences of the Gaza invasion. New York: OR Books. (p. 129)
[xxiii] Mertus, Julie, and Jeffrey W. Helsing, p. 294
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