'War by any other name' published in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper Fri., January 16, 2009

War by any other name By Gideon Levy Fri., January 16, 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056153.html Words, it is true, do not kill; but words can ease the work of killing. From the dawn of the Israeli occupation in the territories - by now an ancient dawn - or perhaps from the very establishment of the state, or maybe even from the revival of Hebrew, the language has been mobilized in active reserve service. There has been a permanent emergency call-up and Hebrew has never doffed its uniform. War after war, doublespeak after doublespeak, words are on the front line. They don't shed blood, but somehow they make the sight of it easier to take, sometimes even pleasurably so. They justify, validate, purify, polish and clean; often they also whip up, incite, inflame, push, urge and encourage - all in standard usage. Dry cleaning, express, removes every stain instantaneously, our word-laundering is guaranteed. We were hurled into this war armed with lines written by our national poet for the Hanukkah holiday, the holiday of the onset of this war: "Cast Lead," from a poem by Bialik. From now on, when kindergarten children sing "My father lit me candles, and acted as my torch," people will remember this war, which some commentators are already calling "the most just in Israel?s history," no less. But as for "war," the authoritative Even-Shoshan dictionary defines it as "an armed clash between armies, a conflict between state bodies (nations, states) in battle operations with the use of weapons and by force of arms." The Litani Operation (Lebanon, March 1978), a large-scale action which lasted three full months, never gained the national honor of being considered a war. Even the "Second Lebanon War" was not given that official name until half a year after it ended. This time we were quicker and more determined. The forces had not yet raided at dawn, the planes had not yet finished bombing the graduation ceremony of the traffic police - leaving behind dozens of bleeding young bodies; and we were already calling it a war. For the time being it is a nameless war; yes, afterward the ministerial committee for ceremonies and symbols will convene and give it an appropriate name. The First Gaza War? Surely not the last. True, the dictionary raises doubts. This is certainly not "an armed clash between armies." After all, which army is fighting us, exactly? The army of Qassams and tunnels? It's even hard to call it "a conflict between nations and states in battle operations," because the battles are not actually battles and one of the sides is not exactly a state, barely half a nation, it has to be admitted. Still, war. What difference does it make if a senior officer in a reserve unit was quoted this week in Haaretz as saying, "It was a superb call-up and training exercise"? For us it?s a war. For months we longed for it, oh how we longed for the "big operation" in Gaza. No one talked about "war" then, but look, a war was born. Mazel tov. Advertisement There is nothing chance about this war. We went to "war" because that single, highly charged word serves infinite goals, all of them as just and as justified as the war itself. Say war, and you say heroism and sacrifice. Add some grit, mobilization and of course the inevitable bereavement, and it's ready: war's verbal arsenal. "Heroism and bereavement" was the headline the militant freebie Israel Today used in one of its combat editions. In war as in war, there is also "victory." Let the IDF win this war. Win over whom? How to win? Just win. But the goals of the war change quicker than a chameleon changes color - one day it's to stop the firing of the Qassams, and when that doesn?t work, you switch goals. Now we have moved to a war against smuggling and tunnels. Maybe also a war of pressure on Egypt. And of course a war against Hamas, most of which is aimed at and strikes - just our bad luck; the helpless civilian population whose only connection to Hamas, if at all, was in the voting booth. In war it is also necessary to upgrade the enemy's strength. First we are fed information for months on end about the Hamas arms buildup and its military sophistication, including bunkers and missiles from Tehran and Damascus, and now Ahmed Jaabari is being called "the Hamas chief of staff." Lieutenant General Jaabari, chief of the General Staff of the army of the semi-hollow Qassams. And why did we bomb Islamic University in Gaza City? Because that is where the Palestinians' version of the Rafael arms development authority was based, the Israeli press reported. That?s where they develop drones that carry ammunition and bunker-busting missiles, not only lathes for machine-tooling. We built up their strength and so heightened our victory and sweetened its taste. In war as in war, silence is permitted: keep silent yourself and silence others. It?s not just permitted, it's obligatory. Here is another good reason to call this a war. War makes it possible to mobilize, call to the flag and unite the ranks of the people, which most of the time are more interested in the seacoast of Antalya than in any West Bank outpost. Only in war are we permitted to have media that sound more like the briefing room of the IDF Spokesman. In war, propaganda is all right. Using the word 'war' also validates war crimes, which might be prohibited in just a plain operation. If it's war, then let's go all the way: white phosphorus shells in the streets and artillery against population shelters; hundreds of women and children killed; strikes against rescue units and supply services. Hey, this is war, right? War also gives rise to poetry of its heroism. True, we will never again have songs like we had after the Six-Day War. Arik Lavie will no longer sing the lyrics of Yoram Taharlev: "We are past Rafiah, like you wanted, Tal, against the enemy we charged, and those who fell, fell. We passed by the fallen, we ran forward, Tal." (Major General Israel Tal commanded the division that captured Gaza in 1967.) It's true that we will never again sing "Nasser is waiting for Rabin, ay, ay, ay," or "Sharm al-Sheikh, we have come back to you again." But songs there will be, for sure. We have already had one rhymester wit in this war: "Hamas in Damascus is disconnected, the leadership in Gaza is dejected, the military wing is defecting, Hamas is screaming as expected." Cute, eh? (Lyrics as recited by the cabinet secretary, Oved Yehezkel, in a press briefing on Sunday about the briefing to the cabinet by the director of Military Intelligence.) Whoever the wag is, we already have our first war song, as boastful as "Nasser is waiting for Rabin." The swaggering lyrics go hand in hand with doublespeak. "The houses have to be distanced from the border," a learned military analyst explained incisively last week, referring to what needs to be done in Rafah along the "Philadelphi" route. "To distance the houses from the border," as though these were homes marked for conservation in the old Sarona neighborhood of Tel Aviv, on which the Kirya - the defense establishment compound - now stands. Why, you just slide them onto tracks and move them a few meters down the road. Has the learned analyst seen the Rafah homes opposite Philadelphi in recent years? Most of them have long since been reduced to rubble. People lived in them, a great many people, who have nowhere, but nowhere, to go. Now there are hundreds more destroyed homes, which we have "distanced from the border," so to speak. We "liberated" the territories, "preempted" the terrorists and "preserved order," the order of the occupation; consolidated the occupation with a "civil administration," being careful not to cause a "humanitarian disaster," jailed people in ?administrative detention," killed with "neighbor procedure," murdered with "rules of engagement" and liquidated "senior figures in Hamas"; children "died from their wounds," adults were killed with "rubber bullets," a 6-year-old child who is killed is a "youth," a 12-year-old youth who is killed is a "young man" and both are "terrorists"; we established a "crossings unit" which is a network of roadblocks, and a "coordination and liaison directorate" which hardly coordinates or liaises between anything; we killed "gunmen" and "wanted individuals" and people "required for questioning," all of them "ticking bombs." Now we have a "humanitarian corridor" and an equally "humanitarian" cease-fire. The "bank of goals" is also a friend." People "in shock" exist only in Israel, no one has gone into shock in Gaza. "Children of the south" live only in Sderot. Hamas fighters are "terrorists" and "Hamas activists," too, are not entitled to the honorific title of "noncombatants," so their fate is the same. Every postman of the Palestinian postal service, every policeman, every government accountant and maybe also every doctor working in Hamas' non-civil administration is considered an activist of the organization and therefore is to be killed before he kills us. Our air force bombs and levels "targets," sometimes also "structures," never houses. Israel demands a "security zone" in Gaza, and security is always ours, only ours. Only my colleague at Haaretz, Amira Hass, dares, with characteristic courage, to call the tens of thousands of new homeless people in Gaza, made homeless by us, refugees for the second and third time in their lives; dares to call them "displaced persons." A term that is so heavily charged and fraught with history. But these DPs have nowhere to escape the horrors of the "war.

More on white Phosphorus and other illegal weapons being used in Gaza. This article appeared in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper

Is Israel using illegal weapons in its offensive on Gaza? By Amira Hass 16/01/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055927.html The earth shaking under your feet, clouds of choking smoke, explosions like a fireworks display, bombs bursting into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, mushroom clouds of pinkish-red smoke, suffocating gas, harsh burns on the skin, extraordinary maimed live and dead bodies. All of this is being caused by the bombs Israel is dropping on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, according to reports and testimonies from there. Since the first day of the Israeli aerial attack, people have been giving exact descriptions of the side effects of the bombing, and claiming that Israel is using weapons and ammunition that they have not seen during the past eight years. Furthermore, the kinds of grave injuries doctors at hospitals in the Strip have reported are providing yet another explanation for the overwhelming dread inhabitants are experiencing in any case. Advertisement It is precisely for this reason that Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW), has come to Israel. His mission: to examine whether the weapons that both sides are using are themselves legal and whether the use of them is legal. The American-born Garlasco has not been permitted to enter Gaza - as is also the case with people from other human rights organizations and foreign journalists. Therefore, he says, since he is unable to examine actual remnants of the explosives and see the wreckage with his own eyes, he can only guess or make assumptions in some cases. But even from afar, he has no doubt: Israel is using white phosphorus bombs. That was immediately clear to him while he stood last week on a hill facing the Gaza Strip and observed the Israel Defense Forces' bombings for several hours. Last Saturday HRW hastened to publish a call to Israel to "stop unlawful use of white phosphorus in Gaza." The use of white phosphorus is permitted on the battlefield, explains Garlasco, but the side effects on humans and the environment are severe and highly dangerous. The statement notes that the "potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world." The fireworks-like explosions, the thick smoke, suffocating gas, and flames that are not extinguished by water, but rather are heightened by it - all of these are characteristic of the white phosphorus bombs the IDF is using. Garlasco believes the decision to make such extensive use of these bombs, manufactured by America's General Dynamics Corporation, stems from conclusions drawn from the Second Lebanon War, in which the IDF lost many tanks. "The phosphorus bombs create a thick smokescreen and if Hamas has an anti-tank rocket, the smoke prevents the rocket from tracking the tank," he explains. There are two ways to use the bombs: The first is to impact them on the ground, in which case the resulting thick smokescreen covers a limited area; the second way is an airburst of a bomb, which contains 116 wafers doused in phosphorus. The moment the bomb blows up and the phosphorus comes in contact with oxygen - it ignites. This is what creates the "fireworks" and billows of jellyfish-shaped smoke. The fallout covers a wide area and the danger of fires and harm to civilians is enormous. The phosphorus burns glass, and immediately ignites paper, trees, wood - anything that is dry. The burning wafers causes terrible injury to anyone who comes in contact with them. The irony is that tear gas is included in the Chemical Weapons Convention and is subject to all kinds of restrictions, whereas phosphorus is not. And in the meantime, in the hospitals in Gaza there are people lying in beds - among them many children - whose severe injuries and burns have appalled the medical teams. Missing the target Another new weapon that has forced itself upon Gazans is the GPS-guided mortar - a system equipped with satellite navigation, developed in Israel in late 2006-early 2007, in the wake of the Second Lebanon War. According to local military sources, it was this kind of mortar that missed its target by 30 meters and erroneously hit a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school last week; according to the UN report, 30 people were killed immediately and others died later of their injuries. "It really boggles my mind," Garlasco comments. "According to the literature, it has 3 meters' error - not 30." It is a mortar that is launched in an arc toward an unseen target, he explains, with the intention of being precise and to some extent minimize civilian casualties. Garlasco says this is the first time the weapon has been used in any military conflict: "The Palestinians say, 'Oh, they use it on us, experiment with it for the Americans.' Experimenting has a different meaning for Americans. We think animal experimenting, but it is indeed a field test." The new mortar was developed jointly by the Israeli weapons industry and a private American company called Alliant. Israel, notes Garlasco, has learned a lot from the wars the U.S. is waging in Afghanistan and Iraq, but above all learned from its own war in Lebanon in 2006. The mortar that was not supposed to have landed on the school was developed with the knowledge that troops "are fighting an enemy that is in a densely populated area, and here is the first time they use it." Another important lesson Israel learned from the Lebanon war is that it cannot rely entirely on the U.S. to provide weapons. During that war, when the IDF ran out of cluster bombs, Israel asked for an emergency shipment of 1,200 such munitions (each containing 644 bomblets). The United States refused, and at that point, Garlasco notes, Israel realized it could not rely solely on American help in this realm. Therefore, Israel has, for example, developed a new type of rifle, the (Tavor) TAR-21 ("an incredible weapon," says Garlasco; he can't help being complimentary) to take the place of the U.S.-made M-16. It has also invented the Delilah guided missile, but Garlasco does not know whether it has been used in Gaza. But not to worry, he adds: Despite the cluster bombs and independent Israeli development, Israel and the United States "still have a great relationship. By and large, the weaponry that Israel is using is American." Not all of the weapons are new and innovative. Most, in fact, are American products developed during the Cold War. The artillery and incendiary weapons in Israel's possession were designed to destroy Russian tanks "and not Palestinian homes," he notes. The weapons being produced now are developed in the knowledge that the target is militants who operate from within a civilian population. Yet, much of the killing and destruction in Gaza are the result of old-fashioned, cheaper and less-sophisticated weapons. Only last September did the United States grant Israel's request to supply it with 1,000 bombs of a new type, the GBU-39. They arrived at the beginning of December, and inhabitants of Rafah have witnessed their use - without knowing what they were - since the first day of the aerial attacks on the tunnels there. (The Jerusalem Post was the first to identify these as GBU-39s.) Gazans were surprised when they did not hear an explosion immediately after the Israeli aircraft fired; instead, the earth shook beneath their feet. The manufacturer of the GBU-39 is the Boeing Corporation. The small diameter and light weight of these guided bombs ensure that any fighter plane can carry a large number of them and thus increase the number of attacks in every sortie. Garlasco says that the weapon is very accurate and penetrates deep into the earth. It is also designed to minimize collateral damage, since it does not explode over a large area like other bombs do. But other types of bombs are also being used and are destroying houses along the border with Egypt. Gazans have noticed that there are bombs that produce mushroom clouds in various shades of red. Here, Garlasco admits, "I can only speculate. It looks like Israel is maybe using a new weapon that it was not using before: DIME - the dense inert metal explosive, consisting of 25 percent TNT and 75 percent tungsten, a heavy metal. You mix the two, in a fine grain, like pepper, and when the bomb hits the ground it aerosolizes. In less than a second, the mist dissipates and explodes." He says the advantage of DIME is that "it strikes a very small area, 10 to 20 meters, and the fire it ignites burns out very quickly; if it hits us now, we will die, but no one around us will be hurt. The problem is that when you are killed - you are ripped to shreds and there is nothing left." Indeed, the injuries DIME causes are in general more severe than those caused by a "regular" bomb. A paramedic at the Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabalya refugee camp has told the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that about 90 percent of the wounded he has rescued during the past few weeks were brought in with at least one limb missing. Is it the DIME that is causing the severe injuries being reported by the medical staff? Garlasco says there are "only rumors. No one has ever seen it used before, maybe it is being used now, but with Israel not letting in journalists and human rights organizations, these rumors are growing, and people say that Israeli is using terrible new weapons." Perhaps, he says, the redness is a result of the metal in the explosives, but it will only be possible to ascertain this if experts are allowed into the Gaza Strip, or they talk to the IDF. Garlasco notes that herein lies the big difference between the Israeli army and the American army: As a worker for a human rights organization, he receives daily e-mails from the U.S. Air Force with a detailed report of the bombs it has dropped in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The Israelis would never do that," he explains. "They would never talk about what weapons they use and will never allow any discussion in society of whether the weapons should be used." Another new weapon that he believes is now in use is the Spike: "It is very new, [from] 2005-2006, a special missile that is made to make very high-speed turns, so if you have a target that is moving and running away from you, you can chase him with the weapon. It was developed by the U.S. Navy jointly with Rafael [the Israel Armament Development Authority]. Rafael is the manufacturer." Drones, incidentally, are a totally Israeli product, he notes; Israel is the world leader in this field, and America is learning a lot from it. The warships bombing Gaza are also Israeli made. But the cannons on the ships are Italian, produced by the Oto Melera company. From his frustrating observation point outside Gaza, and on the basis of Israel's "very bad record of using cluster bombs in Lebanon and selling them to Georgia," Garlasco says he is worried that Israel is also now using the APAM (Anti Personnel/Anti Materiel) - a new type of round, or unit of ammunition, for tanks that was developed after Lebanon, each of which contains six cluster bombs. The tank guns aim above a target that is hiding behind some kind of cover and the ammunition explodes above people's heads - like those of Iz al-Din al-Qassam cells, for example, when they are firing rockets. The other side Garlasco and Human Rights Watch also examine the other side, and he says, "We believe that the Grad and Qassam are illegal weapons because they are not accurate enough to be used in this situation." He adds that Hamas makes frequent use of land mines and explosive charges that are liable to injure civilians. However, because he and his fellow experts can't go into Gaza, "We don't know what the extent of any [Palestinian] civilian casualties is because of Hamas - whether they are shooting soldiers and their bullets end up killing civilians, or whether their anti-tank missiles miss an Israeli tank and hit a house. We don't know." In 2005, Garlasco met with a political representative of Hamas and told him that use of Grads is a contravention of the Geneva Convention. The reply he got from the Hamas man was: "'All Israelis are military.' And I explained to them that their reading of international law is wrong." It is amazing, he adds, that the Palestinians can manufacture the Qassams under the conditions in Gaza. The Grad, however, "is a real military weapon, three meters long. It has a significant warhead. The problem is that it is designed to be fired in mass, to be fired 21 rockets at a time, so that you are covering an area and you are having a shock effect. You don't only have an explosion, but also a shock and it covers a big area. Shooting one at a time is almost useless from a military perspective." As for the Israeli claim about weapons and ammunition being hidden in public buildings such as mosques, Garlasco reiterates that only independent sources will be able to examine this claim and clarify its veracity. If the mosques blown up in the heart of densely populated residential neighborhoods indeed served as hiding places for weapons and ammunition, he would expect to see many secondary explosions, which would have caused significant collateral damage and deep craters. It is difficult to analyze the Israeli claims on the basis of photographs, he notes. Garlasco is not prepared to accept without question the Israeli claim that Hamas hides behind civilians and makes use of civilians. "Israelis are very quick to say they are doing it, but very short on proof. By keeping the independent people out, they leave doubt in people's minds." Furthermore, he believes, Israel has a record of not telling the truth: "They said in Lebanon they did not use cluster bombs. We found 4 million. They evade answering that they use phosphorus, and we stand there every day watching. They claim to have bombed a truck full of Grad missiles, and according to witnesses who spoke with Haaretz, it turned out to be a truck with oxygen tanks. Not everything that is long is a missile. How can anyone trust the Israeli military?'" The IDF Spokesman responds: "The IDF is fighting the terror elements while meticulously observing the rules of engagement under international law. For understandable operational reasons, the IDF will not relate to a detailing of the materiel that is in its possession and the parameters in which it used. It should be emphasized, however, that the IDF uses only methods and materiel that are permitted under international law."

Sir Gerald Kaufman MP complete speech - 15 January 2009 puts an historical context on developing Gazan Tragedy

House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 January 2009 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0013.htm 3.5 pm Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab): I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine. I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me. I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence. My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count. On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that “500 of them were militants.” That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants. The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews. Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of 15 Jan 2009 : Column 408 Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed. The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said: “You make peace by talking to your enemies.” However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel. It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.