Gaza: Colonial Violence and Flawed Justifications
31/12/2008
Source & Translation : Tadamon!
Originally published in La Presse (a large-circulation French-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
by Rachad Antonius, Professor, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal)
The Israeli government’s propaganda about the war in Gaza has been uncritically accepted by Canadian media, becoming the dominant discourse in most news reports. The violence we are witnessing is explained by declaring that Hamas has broken the truce with Israel, and therefore it is responsible for the current level of Israeli violence, which is thereby represented merely as a reasonable and justified retaliation. According to this view, Israel is only defending itself against a vicious enemy which is still intent on destroying it. At best, the excesses of the attacks against Gaza are deplored, but their presentation as retaliation is not even questioned.
The meaning that the government of Israel wants to give to the event is thereby internalized, becoming the frame through which the present situation is perceived and understood. The principle of using violence to resolve a dispute is not put in question, so long as it is Israel that uses the violence and the dispute is one with Palestinians. In this case violence is seen as legitimate, but illegitimate if committed by Hamas. This remains the case even if the means at the disposal of each of the protagonists are not comparable and even if neither the damage they suffer nor the capacity each has to inflict damage are not at all comparable.
This logic suffers from two fundamental flaws. First it contradicts the empirical facts on the ground, which are well documented and are not so much called into question as they are conveniently forgotten. Second, this logic is openly a colonial logic.
Who broke the truce ?
Contrary to what has been repeated in editorials and in the TV interviews of various experts, it was not Hamas who broke the truce, but Israel. On November 4, 2008, a truce that had lasted for four months was broken by Israel in a bombardment that killed six Palestinians. Only after these killings did Hamas resume its rocket-launching against Israeli localities. On November 17, Israeli planes bombed once again, killing four more Palestinians, bringing the total number of Palestinian casualties since November 4, to 15. These facts are well documented. (See, for instance, the report of former Jerusalem Post correspondent, Joel Greenberg, in the Chicago Tribune of November 17, 2008, among many others.) Immediately after the first bombing of November 4, Israel started its full blockade of Gaza, preventing the entry of food and medication. Between November 5 and November 30, only 23 trucks of food and supplies were allowed into Gaza, whereas the average in the preceding period was about 3000 trucks monthly for a population numbering 1.5 million. The humanitarian situation, already a disaster, and described as such by the United Nations’ envoy, became even more catastrophic as a result of the blockade. Yet neither the bombings nor the blockade are considered to be aggressions.
A colonial logic
What is it that gets the opinion-makers to “forget” these “minor” details? In reality the government of Israel gives itself the right to use violence against a population that it considers inferior. It considers that these inferior people should not even be allowed to protest. With such colonial logic, nothing is considered as an aggression if it is conducted against a subaltern population. Any movement of revolt, on the part of the subaltern, is considered a challenge to the colonial order and must be severely punished. Accordingly, there is no need to respect international law, as inferior people are deemed to understand only the language of force.
Fortunately this logic is not shared by all Israelis, and movements, such as Gush Shalom, challenged it vigourously; they also called for an immediate ceasefire. Unfortunately the Canadian political elite seems to have accepted Israeli propaganda fully. But the language of force will not ever get us out of the dead end we’re in; only respect for international law will.
