Link TV takes a special look at the ongoing war in Gaza, with a special webpage dedicated to showing perspectives on the crisis outside of the American mainstream media.
The 'scorched earth' tactic that Israel employs is showing signs of military success. 13 Israelis killed and more than 1,000 Palestinian dead make the commanders of Israel proud, as it erases the shame of the 2006 Lebanon War. However, the real goal of all the ground attacks is to teach the Arab world a lesson: Israel is the power in the Middle East to be reckoned with.
But Israel was also sending a message to Obama and his new team, and possibly even setting Obama up for failure. This policy created a lot of mistrust and new hatred towards the Israeli-USA collaboration in the Arab world; the demonstrations in the Muslim world were global and loud. A very dramatic move will have to be made by Obama to regain the momentum of trust between the United States and the Muslim world. It was a challenge even before the Gaza action started.
The fair and balanced condemnations against violence will not even start to make a difference. A whole new approach is needed, an approach that shows willingness to participate in a dialog that is eye to eye, rather than eye for an eye. This can not happen if we again try to revive the "peace process" slogan. The Middle East does not need a process, it needs peace shock therapy that recalibrates all known positions.
Obama has to face huge expectations, but both the Arab world and Israel are united in an attitude that says, "We respect and suspect the newcomer." Give Obama a chance and don’t set him up for failure - this is my only advice to those politicians who manipulate the hatred in the Middle East to serve their own agendas.
-Posted January 16, 2009 by David Michaelis
For the first time in 8 years, there is an opening for a new vision of the U.S. role in the Middle East. Obama as president coupled with the emerging new peace lobby JStreet in Washington looks like it will be a promising combination.
For too long the Jewish opinion has been perceived as "One Voice". Led by AIPAC and the ADL, other dissident voices among the Jews faced heavy pressure not to publish their opinions. But now, as the debate has been raging about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, many more voices are being heard doubting Israeli motivation and direction. Even Jonathan Stuart Liebowitz, better known as Jon Stewart, said on his Daily Show: “Israel Invades Gaza - Missile Tov”.
The newly enlarged conversation can be witnessed at Forward, a Jewish newspaper that is trying to help its progressive readership understand what this crisis means. To doubt Israel’s intentions does not mean that you are a Jewish self-hater, or a traitor to the Zionist cause. Rather, all it means is that, like in Israel, an open and democratic discussion is happening over the internet and on radio shows about what it is that Israel is really trying to achieve.
This war that has been going on for the last few decades, with a few ceasefires in between, has become for informed opinions a "forever war". There is a better understanding now that Hamas and the "War on Terror" are not the same thing. Anyone who thinks that in order to kill 300 Hamas fighters you need to bomb 280 children must be living in a different century, with different moral values. It is not about propaganda wars, it is about real numbers that tell the story.
The war crimes perpetrated are not only against the Palestinians, but they are also go against Israel's very own raison d'être. Israelis often ask why their actions are held up against loftier values and higher standards. The reason for this is self-evident, as Israel was created in the name of survivors, and as a historical lesson against oppression. The moral ground on which the state was created is lost when such military brutality is not questioned. Every Jew has the right to question what is done in their name. That is why it is excellent that there are 3 Jews and 4 opinions about the Gaza military activity.
-Posted January 12, 2009 by David Michaelis
We yearn for peace but we do not want it now!
We Israelis have been living in Israel, as a result of 2000 years of yearning to return to Zion. As history has shown, there was a gap of a few centuries between wanting and praying to return, and acting upon it. Our wishes and dreams are part of our self made identity, but do not necessarily agree with the reality on the ground. So we live in a bipolar world that enables us to deceive ourselves into believing that we are justified in acting in a way that does not correspond with the declared final wish. Be it return to Zion or Peace with our neighbors.
This underlying pattern of behavior is the key to understanding why Israelis perceive themselves as "crying and shooting" army. This term was invented in 1967 by writers who wanted to explain how we can be an occupier of a land and be just and fair. This self-image of the unwilling user of violence is very important for us, so we can justify our history of violence. Violence through warfare is a way of life in the Middle East, and peace as a tool is the exception to the rule. Therefore eye for an eye, or more often 10 eyes for an eye, has been the trend of confrontation. For Israel, the call on starting a war has been much easier for its leaders than entering into a real eye to eye dialog with the "other."
Looking at the Arab world not through the crosshairs, and leveling the playing field has proven to be a challenging proposition. Especially with the people who live in our midst-the Palestinians. We always want to "educate" them, or alternatively crush them, so they can learn the ultimate lesson. This is the reason why we are constantly between "ceasefires," which come under different misnomers as in the famous "peace process."
"The process" is the ultimate escape clause, an excuse for not dealing head on with the real issues. The Oslo process which ended in a bloody intifada was a classic case of avoiding real final decisions over a period of 7 years. By both sides. Because both sides were not ready for the real price of compromise that had to be paid for real peace. To want peace now, one has to be in a mindset that eliminates war as an option. As a bereaved mother who lost her son in the Lebanon war said to me, "battered children tend to hit their children."
For 2000 years, violence meant to Jews what is being inflicted upon you. For the last few decades we have decided that violence is a method people and nations use legitimately. So we yearn for peace, but we educate ourselves, or more correctly we brainwash the next generation into suspecting it to be a false option. Growing up in with the gun as your best friend, your first day’s lesson when you join the army, you realize that the ceasefire is there so you can learn the lessons from the last war.
We Israelis have to decide if we want to survive in Israel, or live in Israel. We lived and yearned in 70 countries outside Israel for 2000 years. Did we start this new entity in order to survive and yearn, or in order to live and make peace?
Even with Hamas…
-Posted January 9, 2009 by David Michaelis
