The current round of military operations between Israel and Hamas appears to be at its end – at least temporarily. Like all previous operations of its kind, it has been a totally asymmetric battle.
While Hamas and Islamic Jihad shot more than 4,500 missiles and rockets in the general direction of Israeli residential areas (only around 240 actually hit buildings – the rest were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, fell in open spaces, or within the Gaza Strip), and made unsuccessful attempts to penetrate Israel and target military installations Israel intercepted Hamas missiles and rockets, and attacked – mostly by means of air strikes – 6,500 strategic targets designed to destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad military infrastructures and capabilities, including 100 kilometers of strategic underground tunnels (the so-called “Metro”).
Since Israeli forces did not enter the Gaza Strip, and no Palestinian fighters managed to cross the border into Israel, it has been a military operation without any face-to-face fighting, even though numerous members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were killed in the course of Israel’s air strikes, in which numerous civilians were unfortunately also killed, including children. Israel suffered 12 civilian casualties (three of them foreigners), and a single Israeli soldier was killed by an anti-tank rocket.
Hamas’s goals in its attacks, in addition to its desire to punish Israel for its conduct concerning the Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah and other neighborhoods in east Jerusalem from which Palestinians are being evicted, and with regard to recent events around and in al-Aqsa Mosque, were apparently to gain prestige and influence in the Palestinian political arena in the West Bank, despite the cancellation of the general elections that were to have taken place there last Saturday; to gain influence over the issue of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Temple Mount compound; and to try to undermine the chances of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Israel’s goals in the operation were to cause severe, long-term damage to Hamas and Islamic Jihad military capabilities, and to return Israel’s deterrence vis-à-vis Hamas, which has eroded in the seven years since Operation Protective Edge, all this with the intention of returning peace and calm for at least several years.
Since the goals of each of the sides were asymmetrical and totally unrelated to each other, both sides might well attain their goals. What will not be achieved as a result of this operation is improvement of the living conditions in the Gaza Strip in return for its demilitarization. Some say that the only way to achieve this is for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip for a certain period of time, which it is currently unwilling to do. Needless to say, Hamas rejects this equation out of hand.
In the meantime, the futile argument concerning the symmetry or asymmetry between attacks by Arabs against Jews and by Jews against Arabs inside Israel, continues.
Last Tuesday, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai presented to local authorities in Lod and Ramle a plan that envisions using drones and cameras to crack down on unrest in mixed Jewish-Arab communities where violence has erupted. However, a statement that Shabtai made on the occasion resulted in Public Security Minister Amir Ohana pouring his wrath out on him.
“From my perspective,” Shabtai had said, “anyone who was involved in the riots in the mixed cities, is a terrorist,” adding that there were terrorists on both sides, and that “the police shall bring all the terrorists to justice.” Ohana’s reaction was, “An outrageous statement by the commissioner should not have been made. The policy is to act firmly against the terrorist rioters. There is and was no symmetry.
Yes, also the few [Jews] who attacked Arabs, shall be treated harshly. But from this to ‘two sides,’ there is a very long distance.” MK Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) called for Shabtai to be fired.
IN MY COLUMN last week, I agreed that there is no symmetry between the basic experience and existence of Jews and Arabs in this country, and between the condition of Jews and Palestinians in general, and added that the fact that there have been more Arab rioters than Jewish ones involved in the current outburst of violence in mixed Israeli cities does not change the fact that there are terrorists on both sides, and that they all constitute a threat to peaceful coexistence.
A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist, and even though there is no agreed definition of the word, it usually involves acts of violence of various sorts, including the use of unconventional means, against civilians – either targeted or coincidental – outside the framework of an outright military confrontation, with the intention of intimidating the victims, and frequently of causing them physical harm, and even death. The goal of the terrorist can be to achieve some political, religious, nationalist, revolutionary or even criminal goal, but can also result from temporary, circumstantial anger and frustration, based on a background of hatred and racism.
Nevertheless, one is left with the proposition that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” which is probably why many Israelis find the mere suggestion that Jews too can be viewed as terrorists in the Arab-Israeli conflict as being outrageous.
The problem is that these very same people are equally outraged at the suggestion that Arab terrorism in general, and Palestinian terrorism in particular, is viewed by most Arabs and Palestinians as a legitimate means in the national struggle of a people who have no state and no army, in confronting a people with a state, a very powerful army and the means to control the everyday lives of its members (i.e. the Palestinians) and their destiny.
A week after the 1977 elections, I joined Lord Nicholas Bethell, who was working on his book, The Palestine Triangle: the struggle between the British, the Jews and the Arabs, 1935–48, in an interview he held with MK Yitzhak Shamir (this was shortly before he was appointed speaker of the Knesset, and four years before he succeeded Menachem Begin as prime minister), on the days he had served as one of the leaders of the LEHI (Lohamei Herut Yisrael). Bethell pointed out to Shamir that the LEHI had been a terrorist organization, just like the Palestinian organizations in 1977, which Shamir did not deny, explaining, however, that the LEHI used to select its targets individually, and that unlike the Irgun, avoided terrorist attacks that resulted in random victims.
“It was the only way we could operate,” he said, “because we were so small. For us it was... the question of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal.”
Shamir was not insulted by the suggestion that he had been a leader of a terrorist organization. However, I have no doubt that if he were still living today, he would have condemned the current Jewish hoodlums in Israel who have chosen to take revenge for Arab attacks on Jews by attacking random Arabs using the same terroristic means used by the Arab hoodlums, and would not view them as “comrades in arms.”
I also believe that Shamir would not have chosen to condemn the current police commissioner for viewing and treating both groups equally.
The writer was a researcher in the Knesset Research and Information Center until her retirement, and recently published a book in Hebrew, The Job of the Knesset Member – An Undefined Job, soon to appear in English