Archive / Other publications
The assault on Gaza and its aftermath
19/01/2009 By Henry Siegman
U.S. and European governments and most Western media have accepted without question a number of Israeli claims justifying its military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated a six-month truce (even though Israel observed it), and refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to take decisive military action to destroy Hamas’ capacity to launch its missiles into Israeli towns; and that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global radical Islamic terrorist network. Israel is therefore to be seen as having acted not only in its own defence, but on behalf of the global struggle by Western democracies against extremist Islamic terrorism.
In this comment, Henry Siegman counters this view, suggesting that it is Israel, not Hamas, that violated the truce’s understandings.
Siegman forewarns that speculating on the consequences of Israel’s assault on Hamas, on whether it will succeed in destroying or expelling the organisation from Gaza, is an irrelevant question. If Israel’s goal remains the retention of its control over any future Palestinian entity, it will never find a Palestinian partner who will accept such an arrangement, even if Israel succeeds in dismantling Hamas. If Hamas is removed, it will be only a matter of time before it will be replaced by a far more radical Palestinian opposition.
*This article has been published in The London Review of Books and has been translated into Spanish by permission of the author. The article was written before the ceasefire declared unilaterally by Israel 18th January 2009.
Download the full version of this publication, available in Spanish (52 kB)
To read or listen to the comments of our experts in the media about this and other topics, please visit our Press section.
Keywords
Conflict Divided societies Gaza Strip and West Bank Israel Middle EastRelated publications
- A proposal for governance of the Gaza Strip in the context of the announced israeli withdrawal
- Gaza's hell: Why the EU must change its policy
- Gaza: waging useless war?
Bio author: Henry Siegman
Henry Siegman is president of the U.S./Middle East Project, a program of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) for the past 14 years and, as of September 2006, an independent policy institute. He is also a research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Mr. Siegman's areas of specialization include Arab-Israel relations, the Middle East peace process, U.S. Middle East policy, and interreligious relations.
