{"id":23253,"date":"2012-11-26T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=23253"},"modified":"2015-03-09T12:42:54","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T12:42:54","slug":"as-israel-and-hamas-open-the-gates-of-hell-in-gaza-all-the-journalistic-cliches-of-war-are-here-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/11\/as-israel-and-hamas-open-the-gates-of-hell-in-gaza-all-the-journalistic-cliches-of-war-are-here-again\/","title":{"rendered":"As Israel and Hamas Open the ‘Gates of Hell’ in Gaza, All the Journalistic Clich\u00e9s of War Are Here Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Surgical air strikes’, ‘rooting out terror’, and ‘cyber-terrorism’ cannot conceal reality.<\/em><\/p>\n

Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Here we go again. Israel is going to \u201croot out Palestinian terror\u201d \u2013 which it has been claiming to do, unsuccessfully, for 64 years \u2013 while Hamas, the latest in \u201cPalestine\u2019s\u201d morbid militias, announces that Israel has \u201copened the gates of hell\u201d by murdering its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah several times announced that Israel had \u201copened the gates of hell\u201d for attacking Lebanon. Yasser Arafat, who was a super-terrorist, then a super-statesman \u2013 after capitulating on the White House lawn \u2013 and then became a super-terrorist again when he realised he\u2019d been conned by Camp David; he, too waffled on about the \u201cgates of hell\u201d in 1982.<\/p>\n

And we journos are writing like performing bears, repeating all the clich\u00e9s we\u2019ve used for the past 40 years. The killing of Mr Jabari was a \u201ctargeted attack\u201d, it was a \u201csurgical air strike\u201d \u2013 like the Israeli \u201csurgical air strikes\u201d which killed almost 17,000 civilians in Lebanon in 1982, the 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, in 2006, or the 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in Gaza in 2008-9, or the pregnant woman and the baby who were killed by the \u201csurgical air strikes\u201d in Gaza last week \u2013 and the 11 civilians killed in one Gaza house yesterday. At least Hamas, with their Godzilla rockets, don\u2019t claim anything \u201csurgical\u201d about them. They are meant to murder Israelis \u2013 any Israelis, man woman or child.<\/p>\n

As, in truth, are the Israeli attacks on Gaza. But don\u2019t say that or you\u2019ll be an anti-Semitic Nazi; almost as evil, wicked, unspeakable, devilish and murderous as the Hamas movement with which \u2013 again, please don\u2019t mention this \u2013 Israel happily negotiated in the Eighties when they encouraged this bunch of mobsters to take power in Gaza and thus decapitate the exiled super-terrorist Arafat. The new exchange rate in Gaza for Palestinian and Israeli deaths has reached 16:1. It will rise, of course. The exchange rate in 2008-9 was 100:1.<\/p>\n

And we are myth-making too. The last Israeli war in Gaza was such a stunning success \u2013 \u201crooting out terror\u201d, of course \u2013 that their supposedly \u00e9lite units couldn\u2019t even find their own captured soldier Gilad Shalit, eventually produced last year by Mr Jabari in person.<\/p>\n

Mr Jabari was the \u201cNo 1 shadowy leader\u201d of Hamas, according to the Associated Press. But how on earth can he be shadowy when we know his date of birth, family details, his years of imprisonment by Israel during which he changed allegiance from Fatah to Hamas? So while I\u2019m on it, those years of Israeli imprisonment didn\u2019t exactly convert Mr Jabari to pacifism, did they? Well, no tears then; he was a man who lived by the sword and died by the sword, a fate which, of course, will not afflict Israel\u2019s warriors of the air as they kill civilians in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Washington supports Israel\u2019s \u201cright to defend itself\u201d then claims a spurious neutrality \u2013 as if Israel\u2019s bombs on Gaza didn\u2019t come from the United States as assuredly as the Fajr-5 rockets come from Iran.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the pitiful William Hague holds Hamas \u201cprincipally responsible\u201d for the latest war. But there is no such evidence that this is true. According to The Atlantic Monthly, the Israeli killing of a \u201cmentally unfit\u201d Palestinian who strayed towards the border may have been the start of the latest war. Others suspect the killing of a small Palestinian boy may have been the provocation. But he was shot dead by the Israelis when an armed Palestinian group tried to cross the frontier and was confronted by Israeli tanks. In which case Palestinian gunmen \u2013 albeit not Hamas \u2013 may have kicked-off the whole shooting-match.<\/p>\n

But is there nothing to stop this nonsense, this garbage war? Hundreds of rockets fall on Israel. True. Thousands of acres of land are stolen from Arabs by Israel \u2013for Jews and Jews only \u2013 on the West Bank. There isn\u2019t even enough land left there now for a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

Delete the last two sentences, please. There are only good guys and bad guys in this outrageous conflict in which the Israelis claim to be the good guys to the applause of Western countries (who then wonder why a lot of Muslims don\u2019t like Westerners very much).<\/p>\n

The problem, oddly, is that Israel\u2019s actions in the West Bank and its siege of Gaza are bringing closer the very event which Israeli trumpets it fears every day: that Israel faces destruction.<\/p>\n

In the battle of rockets \u2013 not least Iran\u2019s Fajr-5s and Hezbollah\u2019s drones \u2013 a new warpath is being trodden by both sides. It\u2019s no longer about Israeli tanks crossing the Lebanese border or the Gaza border. It\u2019s about rockets and hi-tech drones and computer attacks \u2013 or \u201ccyber-terrorism\u201d, of course, if committed by Muslims \u2013 and the human dross ripped apart by the wayside will be even less relevant than it has been over the past three days.<\/p>\n

The Arab awakening now takes its own path: its leaders are going to have to follow their public\u2019s mood. So, I suspect, is poor old King Abdullah of Jordan. America\u2019s clowning for \u201cpeace\u201d on Israel\u2019s side is no longer worth the candle among Arabs. And if Benjamin Netanyahu believes that the arrival of the first Iranian Fajr rockets necessitates the Israeli big bang on Iran, and then Iran fires back \u2013 and perhaps at the Americans, too\u2013 and brings in Hezbollah \u2013 and Obama gets swallowed up in another Western-Muslim war, what happens then?<\/p>\n

Well, Israel will ask for a ceasefire, as it routinely does in wars against Hezbollah. It will plead yet again for the undying support of the West in its struggle against world evil, Iran included.<\/p>\n

And why not praise the killing of Mr Jabari? Please forget that the Israelis negotiated via the German secret service with Mr Jabari himself, less than 12 months ago. You can\u2019t negotiate with \u201cterrorists\u201d, right? Israel calls this latest bloodbath Operation Pillar of Defence. Pillar of Hypocrisy, more like.<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

Robert Fisk is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East, based in Beirut.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 independent.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS<\/em> <\/strong><\/span>campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>,<\/span> which indicates that it is produced in Israel. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Surgical air strikes’, ‘rooting out terror’, and ‘cyber-terrorism’ cannot conceal reality. Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Here we go again. Israel is going to \u201croot out Palestinian terror\u201d \u2013 which it has been claiming to do, unsuccessfully, for 64 years \u2013 while Hamas, the latest in \u201cPalestine\u2019s\u201d morbid militias, announces that Israel has \u201copened the gates of hell\u201d by murdering its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}