Netanyahu, Uhuru And The 30 Pieces Of Silver

Kenya media’s coverage of the visit by Benjamin Netanyahu, the first by a sitting Israeli prime minister in 30 years, has predictably focused on the “goodies” that he was supposedly bringing. There has been lots of discussion of what the country stands to gain from cooperation with Israel in areas ranging from security to agriculture but relatively little about the price Israel would extract for such cooperation.

It is undeniable that the Israelis have much to offer. As we have been constantly reminded over the course of the last few days, the visit comes on the 40^th anniversary of Operation Thunderbolt, the spectacularly daring Israeli commando raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda which freed over a hundred hostages from a hijacked Air France plane. The rescue cemented Israel’s fearsome reputation in dealing with terrorist threats and such expertise will undoubtedly come in handy as Kenya faces up to terror threats of its own emanating primarily from the Somalia-based extremist group, Al Shabaab.

Beyond security, Israel is famed for its agricultural and water management innovations which have made the desert bloom as well as for its booming hi-tech industry whose goods and services account for half its industrial exports. Its disaster response capabilities have many times been on display whenever Israeli crews have lent a hand to their Kenya counterparts to extract people trapped in collapsed buildings. In these, and in many other areas, Kenya can derive substantial benefits from a closer relationship with the Jewish state. As the late Tom Mboya once remarked, “any African who turs Israel cannot fail to be impressed by the achievement made in such a short time from poor soil and with so few natural resources”.

There is, though, another side to this coin.  Netanyahu’s visit is also a charm offensive. “Israel is coming back to Africa. Africa is coming back to Israel,” he has declared. Israel’s overriding objective in its relations with the continent has always been to break out of its political and diplomatic isolation. But it is important that we do not lose sight of the reasons why that isolation exists in the first place.

Past ruptures in Africa’s relationship with Israel have been attributed to pressure by Arab states, particularly in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the Yom Kippur War (“The Arabs have the numbers, the space and the oil. In the third would they outweigh Israel” as Senegal’s first President, Léopold Sédar Senghor, put it) and Tel Aviv’s relations with the apartheid regime in South Africa.  However, these issues have for the most part been resolved and, by her own count, Israel today maintains full diplomatic relations with 39 of 47 of the countries south of the Sahara and has nine resident embassies on the continent.

The major sticking point has been the Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. The African Union has repeatedly stressed its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state and condemned the “illegal and illegitimate” Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as well as her settlement policies which “contravenes International Law and undermines the two-state solution and prospects for peace”. African countries have also repeatedly blocked Israeli attempts to regain observer status at the African Union precisely because of this.

It is not surprising that nations on the continent, which have themselves experienced the horrors of racist colonial domination, would feel a sense of solidarity with the beleaguered Palestinians. In 2014, South African icon, Desmond Tutu said the "the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces … is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."

Breaking this African consensus is Netanyahu’s declared aim. And he seems to have at least partially succeeded in winning over President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has now called for a “re-evaluation” of Africa’s relationship with Israel. In doing so, Uhuru has traded in our values – and sold out the Palestinians for thirty pieces of silver.

But perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, in the recent past, the Kenyatta administration has stood with North Korea, Myanmar, Iran and Sudan at the UN to oppose protections for human rights defenders and voted with China and Russia to remove references to freedom of expression in a resolution on online freedom. Let’s face it. Values are not his strong suit.

Israel vs POTUS? No Contest!

It never ceases to amaze me the massive clout that Israel wields within American corridors of power. Remember this? Well, last week, when President Obama needed a reminder of who really runs things, the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was only too willing to oblige. Only he decided to do it in front of the assembled press corps following a tense meeting at the White House.

The trouble started when Obama had the gumption to suggest in a speech that mid-east peace negotiations be based a return to the 1967 "borders" with appropriate land swaps to cater for Israel's illegal "facts on Palestinian ground" more commonly known as settlements. Many would have thought this to be a rather generous offer, one that rewards the Israeli's bad behaviour and disregard for both international law and Palestinian's rights.

Obama was by no means breaking new ground. Ever since the Oslo Accords of 1982, negotiations have proceeded on a framework of land for peace i.e. the return of occupied land for a permanent peace. Occupied land, as described in UN resolution 242 of 1967, comprises territory taken by Israel following the Six Day War, including the West Bank, Gaza, Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai (which was returned following the Camp David agreements).

Obama's "proposal" also enjoyed the immediate support of the Middle-East Quartet which brings together the UN, EU, Russia and the US. Following th speech, the Russian foreign ministry quickly issued a statement saying the grouping agrred that "progress in dealing with borders and security issues could eventually lead to a final resolution of the conflict."

However, Israel evidently didn't get the memo. A fuming Bibi berated the idea as based on illusions and made clear that he expected Obama to renew pledges made to Israel by his predecessor, George W. Bush. He claimed that the 1967 lines, from behind which Israel had conquered 3 Arab armies simultaneously in less than a week, were now "indefensible" and said Obama could not sweep certain facts -presumably settlements- under the carpet.

That set the scene for the post-summit joint appearance before the world's press. Obama went first, making reconciliatory noises about disagreements between friends and his commitment to Israel's security. Bibi however, was in no mood for niceties. He gave Obama what amounted to a public dressing down, lecturing him on the Jews terrible history of persecution -something Obama's African and Irish ancestors presumably knew nothing of.

Then he really got into his groove, saying it was time to tell Palestinian refugees that their much cherished right to return to the homes their parents and grandparents were kicked out of in what is now Israel, a right deemed inalienable by the admittedly non-binding UN General Assembly resolution 3236, was yet another illusion. Just moments prior to invoking the (one can only suppose extraordinarily long-living) Jewish people and their millenia long yearning for a return to Palestine, thus wiping out the area's future as an Arab region, he derided Palestinian's 63 year cry for Israel to "accept the grandchildren, really, and the great grandchildren of ... refugees, thereby wiping out Israel’s future as a Jewish state. It's not going to happen."

A craven Obama listened studiously, only summoning up the courage to correct Netanyahu once -when he referred to the 7 million Israelis as "a much smaller people" in comparison to the 310 million Americans. " A great people," Obama corrected him.

Of course it was not the first time he was being reminded who's boss. He's had plenty of lessons. During his campaign for the presidency, he was criticised for having the temerity to suggest that the US should actually be what it claims to be -an honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. After he made it to the White House, the notional leader of the free world was again reminded of the limits of his power after he attempted to get Israel to stop its illegal settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land. Needless to say, that is now a subject he steers well clear of.

So what are we to conclude? The mightiest nation on earth is not necessarily the brute with the brawn. It's the historically and geographically challenged state that controls the brute's head.

Let's Get On With It!

War on Peace?

It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war. Take the reasons offered for the ongoing bombardment and invasion of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force. The right of national self defense is the oft-repeated mantra, the reasoning being that no nation can abide continued rocket attacks on its civilian population.

To support their claim, the Israelis have been issuing figures of up to 11,000 rockets lobbed either by Hamas or with its blessing into Southern Israel from Gaza, and have accused the group of refusing to respect and renew the current ceasefire while at the same time taking advantage of the lull to replenish its weapons stocks.

Well, regarding the just ended ceasefire, a report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) which is part of the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), an NGO dedicated to the memory of the fallen of the Israeli Intelligence Community says

"As of June 19 [when the ceasefire took effect], there was a marked reduction in the extent of attacks on the western Negev population. The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by rogue terrorist organizations, in some instance in defiance of Hamas (especially by Fatah and Al-Qaeda supporters). Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire."

The report goes on to show that between June 19 and November 4 (when the truce was broken by an Israeli incursion into Gaza -more on that later)only 20 rockets (three of which fell inside the Gaza Strip) and 18 mortar shells (five of which fell inside the Gaza Strip) were fired at Israel. Compare this with the average of 380 rockets and mortars a month in the six months preceding the ceasefire.

In fact, the Jeruasalem Post reported that on Sunday, 21 December, less than a week before Israel launched her attack on Gaza, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that Hamas was interested in renewing the relative calm with Israel and wanted to improve the cease-fire conditions.

"Diskin listed Hamas' conditions as cancelling the blockade of the Gaza Strip, obtaining a commitment that Israel won't attack, and expanding the cease-fire to the West Bank."

In fact, historically it is Israel itself that has been reluctant to accede to truces and ceasefire. 

• In the early 90s, Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin offered Israel a fixed ceasefire of 20-50 years if she withdrew to the 1967 borders, if both sides undertook not to attack each other and if there were free elections for Palestinian reps to peace talks. Yassin explicitly accepted that elected Palestinian reps would recognise Israel and that such an outcome would end the conflict. There were no takers from Israel. 
  
• On July 31, 2001, Israel's assassination of 2 militants in Nablus ended a near two-month Hamas ceasefire. 
  
• On July 22, 2002, just 90 minutes after the text of a Tanzim ceasefire supported by the EU, Jordan and the Saudis had been completed, an Israeli airstrike on a crowded apartment block killed a senior Hamas leader, Sheikh Salah Shehada, and 14 civilians, 9 of them children. The Israelis later admitted that they were aware of the impending declaration of the ceasefire. 
  
• In February 2005, Hamas signed on to a limited ceasefire agreement banning non-retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets, during talks with the Palestinian Authority and other militant groups. While the ceasefire officially ended on January 1, 2006, Hamas maintained it without further commitment till popular anger over the alleged Israeli shelling of a beach in northern Gaza, which killed 7 family members, forced it to withdraw from the ceasefire in June 2006. It is instructive to note that throughout this period, Israel continued her policy of incursions, shelling and assassinations.
  

Given then that Hamas was committed to maintaining the June 19 tahadiyeh (lull), how and why then did it collapse?

The ceasefire was based on unwritten understandings and there was ambiguity as to how long it would hold. According to the ITIC report quoted earlier, " Israel 's position was that the lull had no time limit. The position of Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations was that it would remain in force for six months and they then expected it to be extended to Judea and Samaria . Spokesmen of Hamas and other terrorist organizations later stated that it would end on Friday morning, December 19." However fighting broke out on the evening of November 4 when, according to the BBC, Israeli tanks and a bulldozer moved 250m into the central part of the coastal enclave, backed by military aircraft. 

The Israelis claim their intention was to destroy a tunnel dug by militants to abduct its troops. In the ensuing violence, 6 Hamas fighters were killed and the group responded by lobbing over 35 rockets and mortars into southern Israel. The ITIC report shows that by December 17, a further 330 rockets and mortars had been fired from Gaza into Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian groups while Israel responded with air strikes and by "closing the [border] crossings for longer periods leading to shortages of basic goods in the Gaza Strip and disruptions in the supply of fuel." And while the ITIC report claimed that "electrical power was not cut off, since the plant in Ashqelon , which supplies 65% of the Gaza Strip's electricity, provided an uninterrupted flow of power", TimesOnline quoted UN figures showing that half of Gaza City’s residents received water only once a week for a few hours and homes were without electricity for up to 16 hours a day.

By December 18, with one day left to go in what was by then a largely fictitious ceasefire, Hamas was declaring, in the words of MP Mushir al-Masri "the truce with Israel is finished .... and there is no possibility of it being renewed." Another Hamas official, Ayman Taha, explained that the lull was dead "because the enemy did not abide by its obligations."

Explaining the group's logic, Israeli author Arthur Nelsen wrote in Haaretz:

"Breaking the siege that has crippled normal Gazan life is the central challenge facing Hamas, both because it has decimated the lives of its electoral base, and because it is a litmus test of the group's alternative policy for statehood through resistance as well as talks. 

If the tahadiyeh (lull) had succeeded in opening Gaza's borders to aid, trade and free passage for Gazans - especially work-related passage - it would have been political madness for Hamas to break it. As things were, the Gaza closure pushed the organization's popular support down to 16 percent in November, according to one opinion poll, and it must have concluded it no longer had anything to gain by holding fire. "

It therefore seems clear that, contrary to Israeli government  assertions, Hamas largely abided by the tahadiyeh and would have preferred to extend and renew it even after the hostilities provoked on November 4 provided the Israeli blockade of Gaza was lifted, as Shin Bet's Diskin confirmed. It is thus the siege and the reasoning behind it, namely the toppling of Hamas and reversal of the 2006 election result, that is the real issue. 

On this, there is broad agreement across the Israeli political spectrum, despite recent statements to the contrary. On December 21, the same day Diskin gave his cabinet briefing, the top candidates to become Israel's next Prime Minister, Kadima's Tzipi Livni and Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to topple Hamas in Gaza. Livni said her government's "strategic objective" would be to "topple the Hamas regime" using military, economic and diplomatic means. Netanyahu called for a more "active policy of attack", accusing the current government of being too "passive". "In the long-term, we will have to topple the Hamas regime. Ephraim Sneh, former Deputy Defense Minister and chairman of the Strong Israel Party, argued in the Washington Post on New Year's Day that Israel's strategic aim is not to stop rockets falling on Sderot, but to topple the Hamas government in Gaza. More directly, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon in televised comments last week said: "The goal of the [current] operation is to topple Hamas." 

But even the uprooting and destruction of Hamas would be but a step on the way to Israel's ultimate goal, an imposed peace. The idea that Palestinian quiet would be met with Israeli concessions has been effectively demolished in the West Bank. There, where no rockets or mortars are being fired and where a moderate Fatah government of Mohammud Abbas holds sway, Israel has increased its checkpoints, expanded its settlements and continued to build its illegal "separation barrier" on Palestinian land. Even the much touted pullout from Gaza was described by a senior adviser to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Dov Weisglass, as "formaldehyde." It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely." 

A final word on Hamas rockets and the targetting of civilians. Arthur Nelsen writes concerning the former:

"Rocket attacks may be criminal and ineffective - as well as self-defeating in the destructive response they elicit from Israel. But they also meet a very human need to maintain both honor under fire and the spirit of resistance....As Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum put it, 'Because the occupation decided to use every shade of punishment to destroy Hamas - collective punishment, deporting, arresting and killing - we need military resistance to force it to stop.'"

And the targetting of civilians is a tactic that has been adopted by both sides. In January 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said concerning those his government now claims are held hostage by Hamas: "As far as I'm concerned Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn't let people in southern Israel live in peace." Once the principle has been established that Gazans can be punished for Hamas' rockets, it is a small leap from blockading and siege to bombing and death.