Ceasefire On Paper, Fire On The Ground
TOI-Billboard, August 12, 2006
--The Other Israel's weekly comment
--Overview of this week's Occupation Magazine's daily picks attached
So, it goes on.
For the past week and more we had lived under the illusion that when the UN Security Council solemnly resolves to cease
the fire, the fire will indeed cease. The media certainly helped create this feeling, reporting extensively and minutely
on the the ups and downs of the negotiations between the French and the Americans. And when on Friday the news from New
York told of an approaching breakthrough, commentators started talking of the war as if it already were a thing of the
past. And a great variety of nationalists and demagogues started crying and howling over "the surrender" and "the
betrayal".
They could have saved their breath. Olmert and his Defence Minister Amir Peretz heard last night's news from New York
while closeted in the Army's Supreme Headquarters, with the generals making the final preparations for what seems the
biggest ground offensive in this war. And after midnight the headlines on the internet websites seemed taken directly
from Orwell: "Government to approve UN Ceasefire resolution, major ground offensive into Lebanon goes ahead on
schedule".
Looking carefully at the text approved at that hallowed hall of international diplomacy, things become a bit clearer.
For the framers of that new UN Security Council Resolution, 1701 (a number which we will undoubtedly hear quoted ad
nauseam in the coming weeks and months) - have left a loophole in their "cessation of hostilities". Or rather a gaping
opening wide enough to allow the passage of hundreds of tanks and fighter airplanes and tens of thousands of soldiers,
the full four divisions reported to be now charging northwards.
The fifteen members of the Security Council have solemnly and unanimously determined that "the situation in Lebanon
constitutes a threat to international peace and security" and therefore called for "the immediate cessation by Israel of
all offensive military operations". However, as anybody knows who had ever attended a lesson in Basic Civics at a
Tel-Aviv elementary school, the Israeli Defence Forces never have and never will conduct any offensive military
operation. Each and every one of their operations, in this war as in its predecessors, is purely defensive and is
conducted solely in order to defend a peace-loving population against unprovoked aggression, for which reason the IDF
coat of arms is the Sword and Olive Branch, and third grade pupils are required to paste that coat of arms in their
copybooks and write under it the caption "our army hates war and wants only peace".
So, it continues. The number of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon has tripled in the past twenty-four hours, according to
Chief of Staff Halutz, all of course involved in the purely defensive race to conquer all the territory up to the Litani
River, which the generals expect to take "four days to a week" and then involve "several weeks of mopping up" (not that
the army was very effective in "mopping up" the limited parts of Lebanon which it already invaded two and three weeks
ago). So far, at least 19 people are reported killed since the diplomats affixed their signatures to that solemn
document, and a Lebanese contact just informed us that the villages east of Saida, left untouched since the war broke
out, had today gotten a lethal "visit" from the Israeli Air Force.
And so, we must continue as well. A few hours from now, there will be hundreds of us answering the call of Yesh Gvul to
climb the hill overlooking Military Prison 6 at Atlit, shouting words of greetings and solidarity and warm support into
the plainly visible prison courtyard - to the five soldiers who preferred imprisonment over participation in the
Lebanese folly and madness, and also for their fellow-prisoners and guards. Climbing that hill is a tradition dating
back to the First Lebanon War, a tradition which it seems we need to revive, like so much else.
At least, the stifling atmosphere of "national unity" which characterized the past weeks seems to have decisively
dissipated. "The Big Three" of Israeli literature - "Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman - have come out against
the war, three weeks after they had endorsed it in public. (Some 60 younger authors, who opposed the war from the first
minute, had been constantly snapping at these three's heels). Also, the magnitude of the Lebanon invasion and its
similarity to the fiasco of 1982 (except that the guerrillas now seem much better organized and armed...) at last nudged
mainstream groups such as Peace Now and the Meretz Party out of their complacency and the "support from the left" which
many of their leaders gave to this vicious war on its inception. On Thursday they were in their hundreds in front of the
Ministry of Defence, with big signs reading "There is No Military Solution!", and cracks start to appear in the Labor
Party support for the mad careering of Party Leader and Defence Minister Amir Peretz - once a staunch dove and militant
trade unionist, now the the most hawkish of hawks.
As things stand, it seems that all of us - radicals and moderates, those who opposed the madness from its inception and
the latecomers - will still have to go and protest again and again. And meanwhile, the occupation and oppression of the
Palestinians are still there, to any who tended to forget. Yesterday afternoon, the weekly anti-Wall procession at
Bil'in was viciously attacked by the army and Border Guard troops. Limor, a young Israeli activist, was hit in the head
by one of the misnamed "rubber bullets" - which is actually made of metal. After emergency surgery at Tel-Hashomer
hospital, he is now under medically induced coma, and only when he wakes up will it be possible to asses the permanent
damage. Due to Lebanon, the case got very meagre media attention; updates will appear on the International Solidarity
Movement website
Occupation Magazine
http://www.kibush.co.il/ (articles and action news, look at it daily - includes a useful archive)
ISM website
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ (informing especially about joint Palestinian-Israeli-international anti-Wall struggle in the villages)
Robert Rosenberg's summary of "peace" issues in the Israeli media
http://www.ariga.com/ (on workdays)
http://www.theheadlines.org/ (a variety of papers, followed dayly by Shadi Fadda)
http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml (Palestinian press agency, including own research)
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php (Palestinian on-line News agency that publishes news and articles in English from it's own as well as other sources,
including from the Hebrew press)
TOI-Billboard is the 'ezine' of the independent THE OTHER ISRAEL bi-monthly peace newsletter, existing since 1983, and
published by its editors Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt.
NB: The Other Israel May issue is now online with a selection of the articles:
For a one time hard-copy (free sample), send your address to: otherisr@actcom.co.il,
US addresses to: aicipp@igc.org
Visit also the archive under construction of issues since 1994
If you got this forwarded and want to subscribe mailto:otherisr@actcom.co.il,
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