Operation Cast Lead: Part I
The day after my birthday in 2008 I was horrified to see the attack of Israel on the people of Gaza. The amount of disproportionate force displayed by Israel right from the beginning was egregious. It’s not like the Palestinians could fight back and even if they had is a serious violation of international law. It was a war crime. It was genocidal. This is Part 1, more will follow. What transpired in Operation Cast lead set stage for what followed.
Over the next three weeks, one of the most densely populated area in the world was obliterated. Homes, hospitals, universities and countless Palestinian children, women and men were one minute there, the next gone forever. It is something the was seared in my conscience and to this day, it still makes me cry. The operation was known as Operation Lead, the first in a long line of operations. The names of the operations sounded like they were defending themselves against a threat. Gaza is not a threat to the security of Israeli citizens. Any action taken by Palestinians is in response to Israel’s occupation, aggression and the murder of so many Palestinians over the years.
The siege on Gaza lasted for 22 days. The death toll, the injuries, the destruction was something I was sure would change the western world’s support of Israel. It clearly was a genocide with the intent of eradicating the Gazan population. I was very wrong. The day after the operation began, Ynet – an Israeli newspaper that is far from balanced – columnist known as B. Michael wrote, “There is not too much glory and valor involved in flying over a giant prison and firing at its people using helicopters and fighter jets.”1 He was fired. I haven’t seen anything written by him since.
The Knesset was salivating. This was Israel’s moment. The was redemption by restoring Israel’s deterrence capacity. Norman Finkelstein has spoken and written quite a bit about this. What he has to say is enlightening. Deterrence capacity sounds like a complicated military term, but it boils down to one thing, to instill fear. It’s to terrify the people subject to it.
The reason for the operation had nothing to do with terrorist acts by Hamas. It was to regain their pride, their standing within the international community. They were humiliated by the war they waged on Lebanon in 2006.
“Remember, [Israeli defense minister Ehud] Barak’s real foe is not Hamas,” a former Israeli minister told the Crisis Group. “It is the memory of 2006.”27 Others gloated that “Gaza is to Lebanon as the second sitting for an exam is to the first—a second chance to get it right,” and that Israel had “hurled back” Gaza not just 20 years (as in Lebanon), but “into the 1940s”; “Israel regained its deterrence capabilities,” it was because “the war in Gaza has compensated for the shortcomings of the . . . Lebanon War”; that “there is no doubt that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is upset these days. . . . There will no longer be anyone in the Arab world who can claim that Israel is weak.” 2
To think , 22 days of an apocalypse perpetrated on a civilian population to prove a point cannot be described as anything other than evil. The callousness of killing over a thousand people of which 30% were children, 10% women, to restore bruised egos demonstrates that the state of Israel has no moral fibre. To them, Palestinians are merely a convenient scapegoat. When a country attacks a vulnerable civilian population using 2 ton bomb and white phosphorus is a genocide. When white phosphorus is exposed to oxygen. It spontaneously ignites at 441°C. It cannot be extinguished as long as it is exposed to oxygen and is very toxic. This is what the Gazans were exposed to for 22 days.
During the ground operation, there was no real Palestinian resistance, there also was no Hamas to be found anywhere, yet the IDF demolished everything in their sight. Breaking the Silence, an Israeli non-governmental organization established in 2004 by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces providing IDF soldiers an opportunity to give testimony to what they witnessed during the operation.
One soldier testified, ,
“The amount of destruction there was incredible. You drive around those neighborhoods, and can’t identify a thing. Not one stone left standing over another. You see plenty of fields, hothouses, orchards, everything devastated. Totally ruined. It’s terrible. It’s surreal”; “There was a point where D-9s were razing areas. It was amazing. At first you go in and see lots of houses. A week later, after the razing, you see the horizon further away, almost to the sea.”
The senselessness, the complete disregard for human lives, the total disregard of the rules of war were carried out with reckless abandon. Just another day at the office. I think what struck me the most was the complete lack of empathy. For the Israeli power brokers it was almost like a party, a celebration of death and destruction. There was no contriteness, no embarrassment, no after thought of the lives lost. All that mattered was restoration of Israel’s deterrence capacity.
1 (B.Michael, Deja Vu Gaza, YNET, 29.12.2008). He was fired. I haven’t seen anything written by him since.
2 Finkelstein, Norman G. 2008. Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. 1st Edition. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520968387.